


home is where you are

by lonelyghosts



Series: life on earth c [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Apologies, Child Abuse, F/F, Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Canon, Reconciliation, Rescue Missions, Trans Vriska Serket, also some lowkey dirkjohn + davepeta/jade, jasprosesprite is a funky purple cat lesbian, minor rosemary + davekat + cotton callie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-06-07 14:26:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15221132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelyghosts/pseuds/lonelyghosts
Summary: Terezi Pyrope is alone and alive on Earth C, still dealing with depression and the loss of the girl she's been in love with since she knew what love was.Meanwhile, Vriska wakes alone in paradox space.





	1. an invitation, a trauma party, and john egbert being insensitive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your name is Terezi Pyrope, and eight human ‘years' ago you and your friends saved the world. Four years ago you were out patrolling the edges of paradox space, where horrorterrors speak in their garbled tongues of unholy communion, looking for a girl.
> 
> [Or: in which Terezi Pyrope contemplates her life on Earth C, the gang celebrates the anniversary of the end of their shared traumatic experience, and John Egbert gets yelled at.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first pesterlog fic!!! wow this was hard

gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]

GC: H4PPY 4LMOST 4NN1V3RS4RY 1 GU3SS  
GC: 1TS DUMB BUT 1 ST1LL M1SS YOU   
GC: 1F 1T W3R3NT FOR TH3 R3ST OF THOS3 DUMB4SS3S 1D ST1LL B3 OUT LOOK1NG FOR YOU  
GC: 3V3N 1F TH3Y’R3 R1GHT 4ND YOU 4R3NT COM1NG B4CK   
GC: WH1CH 4T TH1S PO1NT TH3Y… PROB4BLY 4R3  
arachnidsGrip [AG]  is offline  
GC: UGH  
GC: FUCK  
GC: WHY DO 1 K33P TH1NK1NG TH1S 1S 4 GOOD 1D34

gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased trolling arachnidsGrip [AG] 

Your name is Terezi Pyrope, and eight human ‘years' ago you and your friends saved the world. Four years ago you were out patrolling the edges of paradox space, where horrorterrors speak in their garbled tongues of unholy communion, looking for a girl.

(You have difficulty saying her name nowadays. It hurts too much.)

Now, though, due to the interference of your fellow ex-players, you’re stuck on Earth C, a grad student and TA at the most prestigious law school in the Troll Kingdom, and living in a tiny apartment near the school. You could’ve gotten a better apartment, and you could’ve become a legislacerator (or a ' _lawyer_ ', whatever the humans call it) immediately- jumped right back into the middle of the action- but you wanted some semblance of normalcy, the ability to forget the past even for a little while. And anyways, you like your little apartment. It reminds you of the room you slept in on the meteor, small and cozy and full of smells. Karkat says your room is an abomination of interior design, but you like the way you can’t smell any one color in here, a rainbow of comfort, something to hold onto.

It’s been a long time since they forced you back here, and you’re still unbearably lonely.

Earth C itself is nice enough. You hadn’t stuck around long after the opening of the door- there were other, more pressing engagements you had to attend to- but coming back had been a shock. You hadn’t expected the world to be fully populated again, full of mature humans, trolls, carapacians, and consorts running around. The others had explained this with a handwave and ‘Dave's time shenanigans’, and at this point that’s really all the explanation that you need.

Your husktop chirps and despite knowing that she’s not coming back, knowing that it won’t be her, you practically sprint across the room to lick the screen. You hate yourself for the way your stomach drops at the taste of text that isn’t cobalt. Even cherry has become a disappointment now.

It’s been eight human years, you remind yourself. She’s not coming back.

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC]

TG: yo rezi are you up  
TG: been pestering you since eight am trying to get your attention  
TG: i’m hurt  
TG: do you have a new coolkid now are you cheating on me  
GC: YOU KNOW YOU’R3 TH3 ONLY COOLK1D FOR M3, D4V3  
GC: 4ND 1 H1GHLY DOUBT YOU H4V3 B33N UP S1NC3 3IGHT 4M B3C4US3 1 KNOW K4RK4T  
GC: 3V3N 1F YOU W3R3 UP 4T 31GHT   
GC: WH1CH 1 H1GHLY DOUBT   
GC: H3’D STILL B3 FUCK1NG CUDDL1NG YOU   
TG: that’s fair  
TG: although it’s not like you’re not also a cuddler rezi  
TG: i was on the meteor too yknow we all saw you  
TG: anyways lucky you and your cancelled classes  
TG: bet all the little baby lawyers in training are breathing sighs of relief  
TG: they’re glad to have a week of respite from your terror  
TG: meanwhile those of us tasked with feeding the masses their daily ironic and occasional unironic media don’t have vacation days  
TG: it’s endless hell  
TG: i haven’t left my house in three months. every moment im creating and producing content. i haven’t seen my family in days. i’m a hostage in my own home  
GC: L13S 4ND SL4ND3R 1 4M 4 GR34T T34CH3R’S 4SS1ST4NT  
GC: 3V3N 1F TH3Y 4R3 SC4R3D OF M3  
GC: 4ND W3 4LL KNOW YOU LOV3 YOUR JOB 4ND TH3 4TT3NT1ON 1T G3TS YOU  
TG: you’ve caught me rezi i guess i’m going to liar’s jail  
TG: charged with slander and denying my emotions  
TG: chief character witnesses include rose lalonde karkat vantas and jade harley among others  
TG: also charged with arson but who gives a fuck about that anyways  
GC: H3H3H3H3H3  
TG: anyways i’m here to extend an invitation to the annual victory anniversary party  
TG: before you say no i promise it’s not gonna be like one of those big galas that me and rose attend all the time for publicity  
TG: it’s lowkey and more like a big comforting group therapy session with no pressure and your friends   
TG:   
TG:   
TG: now that i say it like that it sounds awkward  
GC: UGH  
GC: 1’LL COM3 BUT ONLY B3C4US3 1 KNOW YOU’LL G3T 4LL D1S4PPO1NT3D IN M3 1F 1 DON’T  
GC: 4ND B3C4US3 *YOU* 4SK3D M3 4ND NOT 3GB3RT  
TG: thanks rezi i appreciate it  
GC: OF COURS3 YOU DO COOLK1D W3 4LL KNOW 1T’LL B3 BOR1NG W1THOUT M3  
TG: ha  
TG: anyways it’s at our place at five don’t be late  
TG: were doing this bro  
TG: were making this happen  
turntechGodhead [TG]ceased pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC]

Lectures are cancelled today (and tomorrow and for another two days after that) in ‘honor' of the upcoming anniversary, so instead of distracting yourself with the clusterfuck that is the legal system and the even bigger clusterfuck that is your students, you go to your second favorite place to hang out- the dueling center.

A lot of the ex-players don’t like going to or participating in strifes, probably because of PTSD. You know that Jade and Dave don’t like seeing people strife- they say it brings back bad memories, which you can understand. Some of you watch it- Rose thinks it's delightful- but no one, including you, strifes for fun. Even if you wanted to, it would have wreaked havoc on your body. The Game had long-term consequences on all of you, after all, and there are chronic wounds and illnesses to think about. Rose has strange fits and scars that look like tentacle marks on her skin, Kanaya’s lower back aches regularly in memory of Eridan’s light skewering her, to the point that it can fuck her up enough that it makes it ‘Physically Impossible To Get Out Of Bed’, as she puts it. Dirk has neck pains; Dave has so many scars that it would take hours to count them all. One bad hit to your knee during the fight with Spades Slick meant your kneecap eventually needed to be replaced with a prosthetic.

But watching strifes is cathartic in its own way; almost nostalgic. Like home.

Today there are a variety of strifes going on- you sniff out the training strifes and sense one of the more experienced instructors, a grizzled veteran oliveblood, guiding a young Prospit carapace child, through the footwork of their first strife. The kid reeks of golden excitement that vibrates at the edges, fuzzy and uncontained, their center of balance slowly flushing pink with pride with every successful step, every quiet praise that the instructor bestows.

On the other side of the gym there’s a carapacian girl fighting wildly against a human boy. She’s good, you note, even if she does use more energy than necessary with her swings of her practice morningstar. You haven’t seen a good macekind strifer in a while. The boy is more economical with his movements but less steady on his feet, and it only takes a single misstep for her to smash the handle into his nose and knock him flat on his back. He gets back up and they shake hands, the boy having evidently accepted defeat. His nose drips an angry traffic light red into a Kleenex.

These are all known to you, and comforting in their own way. There is a familiarity to them- your first schoolfeed taught strife, all flailing uncontained limbs and bony edges, or early one-on-one FLARPs in the forest outside your hive, the swish of your swordcane against their ribs. But they are still foreign and impersonal enough that it doesn’t remind you of what came afterward, most of the time.

Most of the time. Not today.

There are two troll girls strifing on one mat. They’re clearly both experienced and talented, so the match itself is good- a challenge for both of them. It’s also a match that’s liable to get ugly, and one of the overseeing instructors waits at the sidelines, ready to jump into the fight if need be. But as it is they’re matched enough that it’s almost impossible to get a good, clean hit, and so they dance around each other, leaving little nicks on each other’s gray-brown legs, nothing enough that one will yield. You scent the air, intrigued, and your bloodpusher stutters to a stop in your chest.

Blue and teal. Not exactly; one is tinted dark enough to be closer to indigo than cobalt, and her opponent’s aqua is greener than most tealbloods, but all you can think of is Vriska and yourself, your hundreds of strifes together- some serious, most of them playful- and that last strife, the coin on the rooftop, the sweat-slick grip of your sword in your hand, and the way that it almost ended.

The two girls circle around each other, brought to a temporary standstill, and for a moment the hurt of your aching heart lessens a little. Then the blueblood darts forward, arms high, and brings down her curved knife on her partner’s shoulder, the other knife directed at her partner’s stomach. It’s a good move, and a classic one for those with dualwield strifekinds- it works most of the time, and for a moment you think that this is going to end bloodier than it was intended.

It doesn’t work. In one smooth move the aquablood digs an elbow into her opponent’s upper chest, throwing her off balance and knocking away the knife intended for her shoulder, and moves her lance to block the blade at her stomach. Before the blueblood can react the lance’s tip is braced against her chest, the point gentle against her collarbone, and you are not seeing two teenage trolls who have never known true pain before but two girls on a rooftop and the memory of the sticky sweet smell of cerulean from a mind from another might-have-been timeline.

Just like that the strife ends, and the victor extends a hand down to help up her defeated opponent. The loser takes the hand, pulls herself up, and slings one arm over the other’s shoulder, presses a black lipstick kiss into her girlfriend’s cheek. They step off the mat together, their coiled, tense ferocity replaced by loud crowing laughter and grins and lewd jokes, and you are sick, sick to your stomach.

That should be you. That should be the two of you, now, instead of just you, alone, in your tiny apartment that feels too big because of her absence, sleepless nights and your futile calls out into the empty void that is her trollian, grading the papers of college students full of idealism and naivété and belief in justice, and her, languishing out in paradox space, either alone and abandoned or dead.

You don’t remember walking home, but you remember opening the door to your apartment and feeling like your head is full of fog. It doesn’t clear out fully until you’re taking a long hot shower, standing in your ablution trap under the flow of scalding water despite the pain, staying under until the smell of sweet berry laughter is nothing more than a long ago memory. 

* * *

After the incident at the strifing gym, the prospect of going to the anniversary cookout is draining. You toy for a few moments with the idea of just skipping out on it like you have the last five years, but you promised Dave you’d come. If you don’t show up he and Karkat and Kanaya will get worried and they’ll come up to your apartment with the spare key that you never should have given him and walk in on you on the floor eating iced grubcake by the fistful in a ratty pair of sweatpants while watching a playthrough of In Which Three Wrigglers- A Goldblood, A Rustblood, And An Indigoblood- Are Sent To A Rehabilitation Camp And Meet The Handmaid and trying not to cry, and really once is more than enough!

So you put on your cleanest outfit, an old dress that Kanaya made you on the meteor when she wasn’t doing her dumb pining routine for Rose. It’s snug in the shoulders and it pinches at the waist, but it fits and it makes you look somewhat presentable, so you wash your face, put on your deliciously red boots, and catch a cab to Dave’s house!

You don’t go in the front door because that’s for absolute idiots who have no sense of style, so instead you sneak around the back and pick the lock on some old lady’s gate before climbing up the fence to get a look at what’s going on.

The cookout is indeed lowkey, just like Dave said it would be- no reporters, no society people, just ex-players. Harley’s dancestor, whatever his name is (Jack or Jake or something?) is manning the grill, humming an old Earth song you don’t recognize; nearby, Dave and Karkat are listening to Roxy as she tells a story, one hand waving animatedly and the other wrapped around the cherub girl’s waist. Rose and Kanaya are attempting to introduce their tiny meowbeast to Jade’s dog, and Jane is making her way over to her girlfriends with two plates of cake in her hands and one balanced on her arm. Dave’s bro and John are sitting in Dave’s treehouse, which you note mentally, resolving to avoid him for the rest of the night. This is supposed to be a celebration, and you do not want to ruin the party with your issues. You’re a good guest, after all! 

(Well. Historically speaking, you haven’t, but really you don’t think the fireworks did that much damage anyways. The reporters were overexaggerating!) 

But that is of no importance! You are going to be a good guest, and one of the things good guests do is greet people.

You start to make your way over to Kanaya and Rose and are promptly bowled over by Jade’s dog. It’s gigantic- a German shepherd, you think. One of your human students has one that helps her with her 'epileptic seizures’, whatever those are, and she brings it into school with her. It’s a very quiet dog, too, always primed and at attention. Never barks randomly, unlike the furry who attended your first Introduction to Law class and was the catalyst for your school's rule that fursuits are not permitted in the classroom environment.

Jade’s dog is significantly less well-behaved in comparison to both of them, you think as the dog lavishes your face with its tongue full of love. But you are a perpetually dignified troll, so you get up, pat him on the back, and grin your signature sharktooth grin at Kanaya and Rose while trying to act as if you haven’t just been slobbered over.

“Hello dykes!” you say cheerfully. Kanaya barely represses a snort. “How is it banging?”

“Quite well,” Rose replies, the corner of her mouth upturned in a half-smile. “The sex is great.” Kanaya hits Rose in the arm playfully, but Rose continues to smile at you in her passive-aggressive way. “You look lovely, Terezi,” she adds.

A true mistress of passive aggressive snark. It’s almost disconcerting, or it would be if you couldn’t sense the underlying warmth in her voice, so you simply bare your teeth at her and reply, “Really, Miss Lavender Bath Salts? I hadn’t noticed!”

You had forgotten Jade Harley in your witty banter, which was a mistake. Harley, for her part, has none of Rose’s reservations regarding genuine displays of emotion, so you suppose you should've expect it when she throws her arms around your waist, squeezes the air out of your internal organs, and yells directly into your ear, “TEREZI I’M SO GLAD YOU’RE HERE HOW ARE YOU?”

You wheeze in response, because that is all that your lungs are currently capable of doing (it is thoroughly unfair how buff she is!). Your organs make a squishy noise that they aren’t supposed to make. “Oh, sorry!” Jade says sheepishly, and lets go of you.

“I forgive you, Miss Key Lime,” you gasp unconvincingly, “Long time no see, huh?”

“I wish she would realize the fact that the blindness puns haven't gotten any funnier over time,” Kanaya mumbles goodnaturedly, and you cut your eyes at her- or, well, you cut your shades at her- but Jade simply laughs and smiles up at you.

“Sorry about Rudy! He’s just excited to meet you, aren’tcha boy?” She punctuates the question by rubbing her dog’s ears, smiling dotingly when he leans into the touch. “How've you been? It feels like I haven't seen you in ages, I need to know everything about what's happened since I last saw you!"

And instead of telling them the truth, you start talking about your TA job and the dumb student papers you keep having to read, and they laugh, and you feel your heart swell with a strange warmth.

You lose yourself in the conversation. You’d forgotten how good it felt to laugh genuinely, to talk about the Game in a way that didn’t need explaining, to joke about old foes and have others laugh alongside you, and make fun of Dave because to them he’s just your friend instead of a creation hero. 

The conversation lasts a while, drifting over to the grill as you pick up dinner and expanding to include Dave and a tipsy Karkat. Topics jump from your current day-to-day to the subject of the Game when Karkat grumbles that his editor dresses “exactly like fucking Doc Scratch, all neon green and shit,” so you’re joking about how the Condesce looked like she was about to “start spittin’ some sick fires with all that gold bling, fucking lay down some beats about murder and the end of the world and how difficult it is to get good jewelry when you’ve basically doomed the universe,” as Dave puts it, when things start going south. 

“I don't think you have any right to judge, Mr. Cherrybomb,” you remark when you’ve caught your breath after a bout of giggling. “You and your god tier pajamas that you wore for literally two and a half sweeps on the meteor.” 

“Hey, don’t look at _me_!” Dave protests as Karkat sniggers into his shoulder. “At least I had a cool ass color scheme, Rose had goddamn neon yellow and orange. Y’all complained about Kanaya glowing when you were trying to sleep but I swear she was the one who was emitting more light, wearing that getup!”

Rose rolls her eyes at the well-tread argument. This has been a long-debated topic, ever since the meteor when you met up with a bunch of your god tier selves and you'd gotten into a big long debate about the relative merits of the color schemes. “Shut up, Dave.”

“If I may,” Kanaya pipes up from where she’s now laying in the grass. Her head is nestled in Rose’s lap, and Rose’s long brown fingers are running through her hair soothingly. Looking at them makes your heart ache. “I happen to find the outfit quite attractive on Rose. However I fear I am biased considering that Rose is my wife and I find literally anything attractive on her.”

“We can all agree that John’s god tier outfit was the most pathetic, though,” Jade muses from her position flat on her back with Rudy on top of her stomach. “ That hood tripped him everywhere he went. I once saw him use his hood as a Kleenex. And he _never_ washes it.” She shudders as the rest of you make disgusted faces.

“Hey!” John’s voice is loud and earnestly hurt. The sound of it makes you tense, and the sound of his feet shuffling through the grass twists your stomch in two. “My god tier outfit is cool! It’s super awesome and anyways Dirk says I look great in it!”

Dave wrinkles his nose in disgust, the way that he does whenever the fact that his ectotwin/alternate brother/whatever is dating his best bro since childhood is referenced. But you can hardly concentrate on that. Your mind is racing and all you can hear is the sound of John’s voice from four years ago, full of judgement and unable to understand.

He drops down to sit next to you and it’s too much. You bolt. 

You can’t flashstep like the Striders can, but you are and have always been fast- ever since you were part of a FLARPing team, underestimated for your skinny ribs and arms and body at first and then later for your blindness. By the time that they’ve realized that you’re running, you’re swinging one leg over the far fence and dropping into the old lady’s vegetable garden, landing in the kale plants. They crunch under your feet. Behind you, Jade calls out your name and Dave sighs loudly in the put-upon way that only he can, and Karkat yells “WOW JOHN NICE JOB” and John says-

You refuse to hear what John says.

* * *

The subway ride home is empty and dark. You sit hunched in the seat and try to become so small that you stop feeling the ache. 

Your apartment feels empty and cold when you stumble in the front door. The recuperacoon is an open embrace, and you’re crying when you submerge yourself in it, the sobor absorbing your teal tears.

Four years ago you’d been searching every crack of space for her. You’d found Aradia and Sollux drifting through the stars, being their typical, sickeningly pale selves. You’d directed them to Earth C just in case they wanted to stop by, and Aradia had lit up at the prospect of the archaelogical implications of a planet with trolls and humans and carapacians. They’d left in a hurry, and you’d kept searching.

You were emerging from the ruins of a broken dreambubble, having only found a pretentious Kankri attempting to lecture you and a Dirk who’d somehow gotten some weird black and red AI getup who called himself Hal, when Jade had appeared in front of you and knocked you out.

You’d woken in Kanaya’s spare room in a big recuperacoon that had clearly been bought from Target to the sound of a whispered argument outside your door. There were snatches that you’d caught- stuff about malnourishment and sickness and exhaustion- before the sheer need for rest had overtaken you. 

Afterward you’d learned that Aradia and Sollux were ‘concerned' about your health and had talked to the others about you, and they’d all grown equally concerned. And so there’d been a rescue mission. 

How could they, you’d thought. So what if you weren’t sleeping much! So what if you were running out of provisions! You were Terezi Pyrope, Seer of Mind extraordinaire, and things like that did not matter to you! You needed to be out there looking for her. You needed to bring her home. Once you woke, you tried to leave the house, go back out to looking, and they’d shut you down. Rose and Kanaya had taken you aside and spoken to you. 

“If you left again, would you keep taking care of yourself?” Rose had asked, and you’d told her yes, yes you would, anything she wanted to hear if it meant you could go. Rose might have believed you, but you had grown up with Kanaya, an ashen expert who to this day is supernaturally gifted in regards to lies, and she was not fooled.

"I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go back,” Kanaya had said in her grave, sympathetic way, and you’d raged at the notion of _not_ going back- you’d smashed a lamp and broken one of Rose’s knitting needles in half before you collapsed from exhaustion again and they took you back to the room. 

It had taken a long time to understand how worried they were, how unhealthy you’d become- colds and coughs that had become something far worse as your body shut down from malnourishment and lack of sleep. You had forgotten that you were supposed to be able to feel your feet and fingers. The idea of living without some mild persistent hunger had become foreign to you.

After, they’d apologized for the circumstances, the way it had happened, and you had forgiven them for doing what they thought was right in your own time. For some the forgiveness had come quicker than others.

But John- 

There had been a conversation outside your door during the first days after you’d fought off the sickness and you had begun to feel well again. Outside the bedroom, John and Roxy had been talking, and you hadn’t been listening until they said your name. 

“-worryin my ass off about her,” Roxy had said. “She was really sick for a while there, yknow? Reminds me of Game Over, TeeBeeAch.”

“Yeah,” John had replied. “Like, okay, I don’t know how much you knew about Vriska, the girl Terezi was looking for?”

“Bits n pieces.” There had been an undercurrent of wariness in Roxy’s voice. “Heard she was a total bitch, but I mean she did save the world, so-“

“Okay, like, that’s true,” John had interrupted. “But Vriska was really messed up, okay? She was my patron troll for a while so I’d like to say we knew each other pretty well by the end there, and I saw her do and talk about some awful things. She basically had me killed so I could reach god tier, and she was responsible for Bec Noir, and she paralyzed her boyfriend Tavros and later killed him and she was a serial killer. She killed hundreds of people. She’s the reason that Terezi is blind! She would’ve killed Terezi and Karkat and Kanaya just for the chance to be a hero and fight Bec Noir. She hurt so many people and Terezi just refuses to accept that she deserves better than Vriska. She can’t see how much Vriska hurt her.”

“Prob’ly more complicated than that, Johnny-boy,” Roxy had replied, and you stumbled back onto your ‘coon, unable to stem the flow of teal that dripped from your eyelids. 

How dare he think of Vriska like that? How dare he blame her for her FLARPing days? He had not been there the way that you'd been. He hadn’t seen Vriska’s monstrous lusus, hadn’t heard Vriska’s voice tremble and break when she offered up the bodies of trolls just like her who were barely past wrigglerhood, hadn’t heard Vriska talk in the dark of night about never being good enough, had never heard Vriska mumble under her breath when Spidermom crept into her mind and belittled her, trying to tell herself she wasn’t a worthless piece of trash. How dare he judge her for her survival? He didn’t know about Vriska’s desperate need to atone for her sins, to be a hero, to redeem herself, to be loved. 

The way that Vriska had treated Tavros had been inexcusable, and you had never condoned it. “I was trying to make him strong,” Vriska had said in one of your feelings jams, “so he wouldn’t get hurt. Trying to make him tough the only way I knew how.” It hadn’t changed what she’d done. 

But John had no right to pass judgement on your relationship. He had not been around during your wrigglerhood, he hadn’t been on the meteor. He hadn’t been there for Gamzee, or the late morning cocoa drinks in your recuperacoons, or Vriska’s brisk but gentle shooshpaps, your exploration trips into the heart of the meteor.

How dare he presume to know either of you?

You hadn’t said a word about it to anyone until much later, and then it was to Dave, who had commiserated about how much of a tool John could be, how oblivious and judgemental and blunt he was. You had kept that anger inside you and now, four years later, you could hardly look at John without anger. 

ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC]  
EB: hey are you okay?  
EB: you ran off and i’m almost entirely sure it was because of me.   
EB: you’ve been really distant lately, and i’m worried you’re mad at me.  
GC: YOU 4R3 4N 1D1OT JOHN 3GB3RT  
EB: yeah, i know :B  
GC: DON’T M4K3 TH4T STUP1D TOOTH F4C3 4T M3 1 4M FUR1OUS W1TH YOU  
EB: oh.  
EB: you are?  
GC: Y3S!  
EB: okay i know i’m kind of a doofus on most subjects but i really don’t know why you’re mad at me.   
EB: what did i do?  
GC: DO YOU R3M3MB3R BR1NG1NG M3 B4CK FROM MY S34RCH FOR VR1SK4   
EB: yeah  
EB: is that why you’re mad at me? because i apologized to you and also i wasn’t even the master mind of that operation, so why are you mad at me in particular?  
GC: NO 1 4M T4LK1NG 4BOUT TH3 CONV3RS4T1ON YOU 4ND ROXY L4LOND3 H4D OUTS1DE MY DOOR WH3N YOU THOUGHT 1 W4S 4SL33P  
EB: oh my god you heard that?  
EB: terezi i absolutely don’t have any romantic feelings for roxy anymore. we talked it out and now we’re just original time line buddies  
EB: also i am dating dirk and she is dating callie and jane! we are both over it.  
GC: WH4T TH3 FUCK NO TH4T’S NOT WH4T 1’M T4LK1NG 4BOUT?  
GC: OH MY GOG YOU FL1RT3D W1TH ROXY. YOU THOUGHT ROXY W4S 1NTO YOU. YOU 4CTU4LLY 4SK3D H3R OUT  
GC: SH3’S 4 M4SS1V3 L3SB14N JOHN  
EB: i know that jeez! i was in the middle of a sexuality crisis at the time  
EB: wait. so you weren’t talking about that?  
GC: NO? WHY WOULD 1 3V3N C4R3 4BOUT TH4T 3XC3PT FOR BL4CKM41L1NG PURPOS3S?   
EB: i don’t know! that’s the clearest memory i have from that time period and i don’t know what else you would be talking about.   
GC: 1’M T4LK1NG 4BOUT TH3 CONV3RS4T1ON YOU H4D 4BOUT VR1SK4 D1R3CTLY OUTS1D3 MY DOOR  
EB: you heard that?   
GC: Y3S JOHN 1 H34RD TH4T  
GC: HOW COULD YOU  
GC: YOU H4V3 NO 1D34 OF WHO SH3 W4S 4ND WH4T SH3 M34NT TO M3  
GC: YOU D1DN’T GROW UP ON 4LT3RN14. YOU H4V3 NO 1D34 OF WH4T 1T W4S L1K3  
GC: YOU D1DN’T KNOW H3R LUSUS. YOU D1DN’T KNOW 4BOUT HOW TH4T SP1D3R TORM3NT3D H3R.   
GC: 1 W4S ON TH3 M3T3OR. NOT YOU, 3GB3RT.   
GC: YOU DON’T KNOW WH4T G4MZ33 D1D TO M3. 1 R3M3MB3R TH3 OR1G1NAL T1M3L1N3 TOO, YOU KNOW. 1 R3M3MB3R H1M HURT1NG M3. 1 R3M3MB3R WH4T H3 S41D TO M3.   
GC: SH3 W4S TH3R3 FOR M3 WH3N H3 PROPOS1T1ON3D ME. SH3 W4S TH3R3 WH3N 1 R3M3MB3R3D WH4T H3 D1D.   
GC: SH3 W4S 4 H3RO, OK4Y. TO M3 1F TO NO ON3 3LS3.   
GC: 4ND SH3 W4S N3V3R P3RF3CT. 1 KNOW TH4T MOR3 TH4N MOST. BUT SH3 D1D MOR3 GOOD TH4N B4D. 1 LOV3D H3R SO MUCH  
GC: 1 M1SS H3R.  
EB: oh.   
EB: jesus, terezi, i'm sorry.   
EB: this is because of my dumb feelings about vriska.   
EB: vriska and i had a complicated relationship. she mentored me through out the game and i thought that she was super cool. i looked up to her.  
EB: and then she killed me.  
EB: or i guess it’s fairer to say that she had me killed at jack noir’s hands. she knew what was going to happen. and sure, i came back as a god tier, but it still really sucked, and then there was the whole tavros thing. and then she died. in my time line.  
EB: i didn’t know her that long. all i really knew was that she liked nicholas cage and she was a killer and she liked me. and she never really talked about her childhood. when i heard that she’d killed so many people i didn’t think there were other reasons. i thought she was just a bad person.   
EB: we met in the dream bubbles later on, and she seemed happier and nicer. she was less of a jerk about everything. she’d accepted herself, i think. i really liked that vriska.   
EB: when we rewrote the time line, i thought the vriska who lived would be like the ghost vriska. which was dumb in hind sight, but it’s what i thought. and then we met on the meteor, and vriska was just like she was before. or at least she was acting kinda similar.   
EB: i sort of gave up on her then. i told my self, ‘okay, vriska’s a jerk again’ but it hurt that she wasn’t the same. i really got to be friends with the other vriska.   
EB: i think i was projecting those hurt feelings onto your relationship with vriska. i assumed your relationship was like the one that i had with her, which it obviously wasn’t, and i’m sorry.  
EB: if she ever comes back… she’ll have a lot to apologize for. but so did a lot of people when the game was over. jade and jane did some messed up stuff when they went grim bark and crocker tier, and dirk had his issues to sort out with jake. and all of us said some pretty messed up stuff to one another at some point.   
EB: we all did some bad things we weren’t proud of, and yeah, vriska’s actions were pretty high up there on the shittiness scale. but she wasn’t evil, and i shouldn’t have talked about her like that.   
EB: so. i’m sorry.  
GC: …  
GC: NO, 1’M SORRY.   
GC: 1 SHOULDN’T H4V3 JUST GHOST3D YOU L1K3 TH4T W1THOUT TRY1NG TO T4LK 1T OUT 1NST34D OF 1GNOR1NG YOU L1K3 4 WR1GGL3R.   
EB: it’s okay, really.   
EB: when dirk & i were first dating we had some pretty serious problems with communication ourselves. lots of ghosting happened, and not the fun kind with ectoslime and bill murray.   
EB: it took us a while to learn how to be honest with ourselves and each other, but we got there.  
GC: 1’M H4PPY FOR YOU TWO  
GC: YOU’R3 LIK3 OR4NG3 CR34MS1CL3S 4ND THOS3 OFF3NS1V3LY SUG4RY BLU3 DONUTS  
GC: WH1CH 1S TO S4Y, S4PPY 4S FUCK.  
EB: thank you, i think! :B  
GC: YOU’R3 W3LCOM3 >:]  
gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased trolling ectoBiologist [EB] 

You go to sleep feeling happier than you have in a long time, and for the first time in months, you don’t check your messages obsessively looking for cobalt.

* * *

 arachnidsGrip [AG] began trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC]

AG: Terezi? Are you there?  
AG: Terezi, we need your help.


	2. a revival, a memo board, and a decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Oh," you say. Then: "Why the hell am I still alive?"
> 
> [Or: in which Vriska wakes up, Terezi responds to a much awaited message, the big gay groupchat on Earth C makes some plans, and Vriska has some emotions.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> be prepared for the normal vriska warnings: self-hatred, child abuse, bad communication skills, being mean to others in order to hide the fact that you hate yourself, etc. 
> 
> also vriska does think about her relationship with tavros a little and she is repentant about it in case talk about that particular relationship is triggering for you

You wake alone in the dark, and then: light.

Above you stretches out a spiderweb of rainbow cracks in the black sky, the only light in the world; they flicker and glow, glittering and brilliant, creeping their way across the sky to connect and make patterns. It is still and quiet and beautiful and you think,  _if this is what death is like, then I guess dying's not so bad._

You've barely even thought those words before a pair of strong, muscled arms hook underneath your armpits and a voice yells something unintelligible directly into your ear. You don't even have the chance to react before your unknown assailant lifts you up, and with inhuman strength, tosses you into the black expanse of space.

Your first instinct is to flail and scream. Your second instinct is to reach for your wings, desperate to catch yourself, but they are trapped beneath your shirt and flannel jacket (goddammit why didn't you wear your godtier outfit) and the thin, insectoid appendages aren't strong enough to break through the thick cotton of your shirt. Your final instinct is to tense up and brace for impact, because you're headed for a floating asteroid that must have broken off during the activation of the ultimate weapon, and it's going to hurt.

Luckily enough, there's a flash of green-and-orange just before you land and instead of hitting the ground, you find yourself crashing into someone's arms with enough force to bowl them over with a beleageured  _oof._

Groaning, you pick yourself back off the ground, picking bits of rock out of the scrapes on your elbows with a hiss, and turn around to tell off whoever thought it was a good idea to pick you up and throw you, and promptly stop in your tracks as your eyes meet the neon green and orange of an unfamiliar sprite.

"Hey!!!" The sprite chirps. 

"Uh, hello," you say, and the sprite smiles to reveal a mouth full of incredibly sharp teeth. "Who are you?"

The sprite pouts and puts its hands on its hips with exaggerated disappointment. "Do mew really not recognize me, Vriskers?" it asks, and you take a closer look.

Upon further examination, you recognize bits and pieces of it- Dave's shades, the 'orange creamsicle' color, as Terezi would've put it, and large feathery wings of the Davesprite that you'd heard about. You'd recognize Nepeta's long, battered green coat anywhere. That, plus the purring quality of its voice and the ridiculous use of cat puns and Nepeta's nickname for you, makes it easy to discern the sprite's identity. 

"Are you... Nepdavesprite?" you ask with uncharacteristic tentativeness. 

They throw their head back and laugh loudly without a care in the world. The sound echoes in the empty dark, and you shiver unintentionally as you realize just how alone you are.

"Mew're close!" They assure you. "I'm Davepetasprite, but you can call me Davepeta. It's nice to meet mew."

"Vriska," you respond, still somewhat dazed from the adrenaline surge of being thrown haphazardly across paradox space. Your thinkpan feels old and rusty and unused, and you have the sneaking suspicion that this is the first time you've been awake in a long, long time. "You've probably heard of me."

"Half of me grew up with mew,  _Vriskers_ ," Davepeta puts extra emphasis on the nickname, and you roll your eyes. "And the ofur half of me spent years on a ship with John Egfurt, who was still convinced of his hetfurosexuality at the time.  _Yes_ , I know mew." 

"Oh," you say in a moment of exceedingly rare awkwardness. At this point you're pretty sure that you should be more than used to shit like this, but you're still not sure what's going on. "Uh, yeah, I knew that."

Davepeta, thankfully, doesn't call you on it, instead grinning at you. "How was your catnap, Vriskers?" 

For a moment you're confused, and Davepeta stares at you, puzzled themself, before suddenly realizing something and bouncing in the air in excitement. "Oh! Sorry, I furgot about how delicate troll minds can be. Here, I can fix that!" 

They reach out and touch the top of your head, and there's a moment of darkness in your thinkpan before there is a burst of color and it rushes back to you. 

Talking with Terezi right before taking off. Tavros standing up to you for the first time, and feeling guilty. The battle. That orange creature named Hussie or something?? who kept trying to propose to you?? He was a weird asshole and you're glad he's probably dead. Lord English. The weapon, shining. The blast of white. Being ready to die.

"Oh," you say. Then: "Why the hell am I still alive?"

Davepeta shrugs. "We don't know." They turn thirty degrees, probably about to start monologuing about the whys and hows of what happened, when their eyes light up. "Oh, here they come!"

You look in the same direction as them and see a group of figures- most of them glowing and flickering- floating their way across the endless expanse of darkness that was left after the incineration. They touch down next to you. You recognize most of them, you think. There's Jasprose, the funky purple cat lesbian, and Arquius, the national treasure. Behind them is Nannasprite, who you remember from your time trolling John, and Gctavrosprite, whose eyes you avoid, the unfamiliar feeling of guilt rising from your stomach. He also, conspicuously, avoids your gaze.

The other sprites seem to have picked up on the awkwardness between you and Tavros, and an uncomfortable silence falls over the meteor. You wince internally. It's been a long time since you have viewed Tavros as your destined matesprit, the person you were supposed to mold into the Summoner... and you have come to feel guilt for what you've done. Mostly because of Terezi, but. Still. 

But you can't apologize in front of everyone! Everyone would know that you regret your actions and have 'feelings' and 'empathy' and 'guilt'. That would ruin everything and you're not going to do that. Maybe later, you allow, because as painful as the conversation would be, you do need to talk to Tavros. 

"So.... I have no idea what's going on with this-" Jasprose interjects, waving one clawed finger at you and Tavros, "but I don't care at all and so I'd just like to ask when we're going to set off and go home."

You glare daggers at her. How rude of her to imply that you have feelings. The only person allowed to do that is Terezi, since she's the only one that you have actually talked to about feelings before, but Jasprose just giggles back at you and winks. Gog, you liked her better when she was just Jaspersprite instead of this uninhibited snarky Rose who doesn't even bother to hide her disdain behind passive-aggressive remarks. 

It's at this point that Tavros bites his lip. Or like, makes a motion that's sort of similar to biting his lip. You're not sure if sprites can touch themselves? Or at least hurt themselves? This is going into a philosophical area you're not willing to venture in. "About that... uh... there's a complication." 

The lot of you all turn to look at him, and he kinda winces- both at the attention and at the fact that all of you probably look suddenly worried. You quickly school your facial features into something more aloof. Internally, though, you're screaming. You have to get back to Terezi. Immediately. Has she already forgotten about you? Does she already not care about you? 

It's selfish. You hadn't expected anything when you'd flown off to the battle. But now... you've never been able to imagine living without Terezi, especially not in some new and unfamiliar world. You need her. You always have, even though she's never needed you.

"We can all, uh... fly, or, hover I guess, but do any of us, um, actually know how to get to the new universe?" 

Complete silence- far different from the uncomfortable quiet of just a moment ago- reigns on your tiny piece of asteroid. Tavros rushes to clarify.

"I mean... we know that it worked, right," he gestures to all of the sprites. "We can feel it. The Game is telling me it's over. But... I don't know where it is. Paradox space is big, and dark, and vast, which, uh, also means big, and none of us know exactly where it is."

Davepeta nods thoughtfully, as oblivious as the rest of the sprites to your internal screaming. "That's true. But we do have someone who can find out!" 

They do a dramatic turn and point directly at you, and you almost flinch at the sudden attention- which is dumb, because you love attention, and you deserve attention, and you have never in your life had 'social anxiety'. 

"Mew do have a husktop, right? Or the equivalent- that spi-purr watch on your wrist? Is it working?" Davepeta asks, and you look down at your spider husktop, which is sitting innocuously on your wrist. It looks normal- it's not even scratched. In fact, it looks perfectly functional.

You're pretty sure that if you tried to talk, you'd end up saying something you'd regret. The lump in your throat is growing bigger by the second. Instead of answering, you stab at the button to turn it on, your fingers suddenly clumsy and shaking with terror, and you almost faint with relief when the screen lights up with its blue spider logo. 

It takes a few moments for Trollian to load in, and when it does, your bloodpusher stops in your chest.

gallowscalibrator [GC] began trolling you 2 sweeps, four perigees ago

[808 new messages]

WHAT.

You'd thought that it was going to be maybe a couple perigees since the game ended. But... jegus. Two sweeps? It's officially- she's definitely forgotten about you. Why would she remember you, her greatest failure of a friend, the bitch she put up with who never managed to be a good person no matter how hard you tried? Why would she still care about you?

And eight hundred and eight new messages.

You scroll down through her first message-sent, if the timestamp is any indication, just before your battle with Lord English, and your bloodpusher stops and starts all over again. You want to cry. You're trying not to, but... 

How could she ever think that you didn't need her? 

There are too many to read now, and you're pretty sure you'd get upset if you did, so you skip to the bottom and type out your first message in two sweeps, hoping against hope that she still remembers you, that she still holds some inkling of love for you.

AG: Terezi? Are you there?  
AG: Terezi, we need your help.

And then you wait.

* * *

You wait for two hours. You don't know what time it is where Terezi is, so you try to convince yourself- and everyone else- that she's just still asleep. You're pretty sure that you do not manage to convey the sense of confidence you're trying to convey, but all of the sprites have actual good people as their components, so they don't say much. Davepeta produces a pack of cards from... somewhere. You don't ask. 

Somehow, they manage to rope you into the card game- it's a mixture of Go Fish and high-stakes "Texas hold 'em', which, ARquius tells you, is identical to the Seafaring variant of Imperial Poker. You try to play, but you're checking your husktop every few seconds, and it shows in your gameplay. By the fifth round, Tavros is lending you his chips and you're taking them without your normal complaints and insistence that really, you're helping him by allowing him to loan you his chips, too occupied by your repeated checking of your husktop.

You're on your twelfth round when your watch buzzes in your hand and you almost fall over, you're so fucking nervous. You fumble twice with the controls, and when you do manage to turn it on your vision swims before you, your bloodpusher in your throat, your body taut with nerves.

gallowsCalibrator [GC]began pestering arachnidsGrip [AG].

GC: WH4T TH3 FUCK  
GC: 1S TH1S YOU?  
GC: L1K3 4CTU4LLY YOU?  
GC: 1 SW34R TO GOG SOLLUX 1F TH1S 1S YOU FUCK1NG W1TH M3 1 W1LL K1LL YOU

Your bloodpusher is loud enough that you can hear it, pounding in your chest. When you type out a response, the rest of them are crowded around you, and you can feel them breathing over your shoulder. Something in your chest is coming unattached and crawling up your throat, and you can feel the urge to hyperventilate creeping up on you. She's right at your fingertips, and you have no idea what to say.

AG: Um duh it's me!

There. That works. Your traditional bravado. You can do that, you're Vriska Serket, you can do anything. 

GC: T3LL M3 SOM3TH1NG ONLY VR1SK4 WOULD KNOW TH3N

You roll your eyes. She clearly hasn't gotten over her paranoia! Then again, neither have you, so you decide to indulge her.

AG: In our first FLARP together, we were on opposing sides and they 8etrayed us. I killed them when they called me 8y my wrong name.   
AG: You told me th8t you didn't mind me killing them 8ecause they'd cheated already and asked me if I wanted to partner with you. And I said yes.  
AG: Is that good enough for you, Terezi?

You sit back on your haunches and prepare to wait for a response, but Terezi responds almost immediately. 

GC: HOLY SH1T   
GC: 1T'S 4CTU4LLY YOU  
GC: WH3R3 TH3 FUCK H4V3 YOU B33N?  
AG: It's kind of a long story! Me and a 8unch of dum8ass glowing sprites are out in the middle of paradox space despite the fact that we should be dead.  
AG: Honestly I can 8arely 8elieve th8t I was so tired of English's 8ullshit that I took a two sweep long nap!  
GC: SO YOU'R3 OUT 1N THE M1DDL3 OF P4R4DOX SP4C3?   
AG: Were you not listening to a single thing I said?  
GC: SHUT UP 1'M ST1LL TRY1NG TO PROC3SS TH1S  
GC: HOLD ON I'M CR34T1NG 4 M3MO FOR TH1S

* * *

gallowsCalibrator [GC] opened a memo on board 'god is a bunch of gays in neon outfits'  
GC: H1 3V3RYBODY 1'V3 GOT SOM3 N3WS  
user arachnidsGrip [AG] has been added to this board.  
arachnidsGrip [AG]: What's up 8itches, it's me!!!!!!!!  
turntechGodhead [TG]: holy shit  
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Normally I'd formulate my expletives in a more eloquent manner, and I certainly wouldn't plagiarize Dave's own remarks, but I find I am so struck by surprise that I cannot help but say:  
TT: Holy shit.  
grimAuxiliatrix [GA]: Holy Fucking Shit Is That You Vriska  
AG: Yep! I'm 8ack and 8etter than ever!!!!!!!!  
AG: Well, ok8, not really. Given the circumstances, and my massive head8che, I'm pretty sure I'm oper8ing at around 50% of my normal awesomeness capacity, 8ut you know what? It's the thought that counts!  
carcinoGeneticist [CG]: WAIT JUST A MOTHERFUCKING SECOND.   
CG: IS THAT FUCKING VRISKA I SEE ON MY SCREEN? IS THAT FUCKING BLUE TEXT? AM I GOING COLORBLIND AND/OR HAVING A HALLUCINATION? DAVE, PINCH ME. WAKE ME FROM THIS NIGHTMARE.  
TG: nah dude you're a whole 3 feet away also sir dumpling is sitting on my lap rn and you want me to move? no  
TG: you can pinch yourself you're a grownup troll  
CG: FUCK YOU.  
TG: ily too  
AG: This is the grossest thing I have ever had to 8ear witness to.  
CG: SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH YOU NOOKSNIFFING GARBAGE CHUTE MASQUERADING AS A HUMAN BEING.  
CG: DISREGARDING MY BOYFRIEND'S SHOCKING BETRAYAL FOR OUR CAT AND VRISKA BEING A BITCH AS USUAL, ARE WE SURE THAT THIS *IS* VRISKA AS OPPOSED TO, I DON'T KNOW, SOLLUX PLAYING SOME SORT OF FUCKED UP JOKE?  
GC: TH4T'S WH4T 1 THOUGHT 4T F1RST, BUT US1NG MY 1NCR3D1BLE 1NT3RROG4T1ON SK1LLS, 1 D3T3RMIN3D TH4T TH1S 1S TH3 R34L VR1SK4.  
twinArmaggedons [TA]: ii'm actually legiitiimately 2hocked that you'd accu2e me of fakiing VK's return a2 a joke. ii have 2tandard2, you know.  
CG: YOU SENT ME A VIRUS THAT DESTROYED MY COMPUTER AND KILLED ALL OUR LUSII.  
TA: your poiint?  
CG: ANYWAYS, AS MUCH AS I DETEST YOU, VRISKA, I'M ACTUALLY GLAD YOU'RE ALIVE.  
AG: Awwwwwwww, Vantas! I didn't know you cared!!!!!!!!  
CG: OH, TRUST ME, I DON'T. BUT I DO CARE ABOUT TEREZI, AND DESPITE YOUR MANY, MANY, *MANY* FLAWS, YOU *DO* MAKE HER HAPPY.  
AG: Oh.   
AG: Um. Th8nk you.  
GA: Emotional Discussions Regarding Terezi And Vriska's Relationship With One Another, I Think I Speak For All Of Us When I Ask This Question:  
GA: How The Fuck Are You Alive?  
TG: yeah i second this query  
CG: THIRDED.  
AG: You know, I'd loooooooove to 8e a8le to tell you the answer to that question.  
AG: 8ut I don't know either!  
AG: All I know is that I woke up in the middle of Paradox Space with a 8unch of 8right neon sprites!!!!!!!!  
AG: So could we stop questioning the whys and hows and, like, get me 8ack on wh8tever planet y'all are living on?  
gardenGnostic [GG]: wait did you say that there were sprites with you???  
AG: Uh, yes? Why is that relevant?  
GG: is davepeta with you?  
AG: The 8ig cat/8ird furry sprite? Yeah, they're here. Why?  
GG: can you tell them i said hi??  
AG: I can't 8elieve I'm 8eing used as a m8ssaging service here 8ut ok I gu8ss!!  
AG: They say hi 8ack. Now can we please get 8ack to the pro8lem????????  
gutsyGumshoe [GG]: Pardon me for butting in but I think I have a solution to our problem!  
AG: Oh thank gog, someone with a modicum of sense!  
GG: Well, Roxy and Callie and I have been lurking, and we think there's a pretty straightforward answer!  
GG: Callie has been working on her Muse of Space powers, and I know Jade is god-tier, so why couldn't you give us your coordinates? We could just fly over and grab the bunch of you before teleporting back home!  
AG: Wow! The first good idea I've heard all day! Props to you, Crocker!  
GG: Thank you!  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Overall I agree with Jane's idea, but do you know what your coordinates are?  
AG: No, I don't.  
TT: Okay. Is ARquius with you?  
AG: Yeah.  
TT: Okay. He should have a location program leftover in his glasses from Hal's components, back when he was just a pair of shades and a dead body. If he activates the program, I can track it down and get you the coordinates.  
AG: Got it. ARquius says it'll take around ten minutes to get it functional, apparently it needs to 8e adjusted to account for the 'unique needs of a 8eing with a corporeal form, especially one as STRONG as myself'.  
TT: I'll tell you guys as soon as we get the signal.  
golgothasTerror [GT]: As a sidenote dirk why in the hell did you put a tracking device in the ar shades?  
TT: I was worried he'd go rogue.  
GT: Doohickey whiz dirk he was a pair of shades! He couldnt move!  
TT: At the time it seemed like a good idea.  
tipsyGnostalgic [TG]: lmao of coruse you thought it was a good idea  
TG: *course  
TT: Instead of focusing on my many, many mistakes can we instead decide who's going on this rescue mission?  
GC: W3LL, M3, OBV1OUSLY  
TT: I'm not so sure that's the greatest idea, actually.  
GC: 4ND WHY TH3 H3LL NOT 3X4CTLY?  
TT: Because (and no offense is meant by this, Terezi) your Game powers aren't exactly useful for this kind of mission.  
TT: Paradox space is dangerous, Terezi, and the journey is going to be long and perilous. We can't just teleport over- Jade and Calliope need to know what a location looks like before they can even attempt teleportation- at least, not without possibly risking injury. In addition, paradox space is shattering as we speak.  
GC: 1'V3 SP3NT PL3NTY OF T1M3 OUT 1N P4R4DOX SP4C3 B3FOR3, ROS3. 1 SP3NT FOUR Y34RS ALON3 OUT TH3R3!  
AG: You did WHAT????????  
GC: 1 W4S LOOK1NG FOR YOU!  
AG: Al8ne? In p8radox sp8ce? Terezi, wh8t the h8ll were y8u thinking????????  
GC: 1 W4S TH1NK1NG 1 N33D3D TO F1ND YOU?  
AG: I'm n8t w8rth th8t, Terezi! Y8u sh8uld've st8yed s8fe!  
TT: Could the two of you save this for later? Terezi, the reason that paradox space is more dangerous now than it was four years ago is because it's only gotten worse. It knows the Game is over and it is slowly disintegrating because a new universe now exists. The fact that it's lasted this long is a miracle- and probably owes a lot to the fact that a player was out there in it, asleep. We need to keep as few people on this trip as possible- we are not losing more people to the Game. I refuse to allow it.  
AG: Terezi, ple8se d8n't.  
GC: ...F1N3. 1'LL HOLD OFF. 1'V3 W41T3D 31GHT Y34RS FOR TH1S! WH4T'S ANOTH3R N3RV3WR4CK1NG W33K, WOND3R1NG 1F 1'M GO1NG TO LOS3 3V3N MOR3 FR13NDS?  
GC: TH4NKS 4 LOT!  
gallowsCalibrator [GC] exited the memo.  
TT: Ugh. I really didn't mean to come across so harshly.   
CG: I'LL GO CHECK ON HER. Y'ALL KEEP ON ORGANIZING THE MISSION.  
carcinoGeneticist [CG] exited the memo.  
TG: off topic but it is so hot when karkat says yall  
TT: Dave?  
TG: yeah?  
TT: Shut the hell up.  
TG: ok cool  
TT: Anyways, obviously Jade and Calliope will go. I propose we also send Jane for her Maid of Life powers and John, for his Breath abilities and his ability to ward off debris. We might also need a Time player, and Aradia seems the best choice for that- her ability to freeze time may be able to get the group out of some scraps.  
TT: Obviously it's up to you if you want to go. No one will force you to undertake this mission. It will be dangerous, and we don't want anyone whose heart isn't in this to feel that they must become involved.  
TG: although if you dont go terezi will absolutely hold it against you just saying  
TT: With that in mind, will those of you asked to go accept this mission?  
ectoBiologist [EB]: i'm in! i'll be right there straight away!  
EB: by the way, hi vriska! i'm glad you're alive!  
TT: We are all glad she is alive, John, but I'm sure she's pleased to hear that you specifically are happy to hear of her continued existance.   
TT: Jane, Jade, Calliope, Aradia: are you willing?  
GG: im definitely going and you cant stop me! i cant wait to see davepeta again! :) :) :) <3  
GG: I assume there's no question regarding whether or not I go!   
GG: I'll call my assistant, ask her to cancel my meetings for the next four days.   
GG: I have to say, I'm quite excited to be officially back in action! :B  
uraniumUmbra [UU]: my part in this endeavoUr is absolUtely necessary! of coUrse i'll go!  
UU: i will close my art commissions temporarily, for my part  
UU: also, hi vriska! yoU don't know me, bUt i've always been a bit of a 'fan', for lack of a better word, of yoUrs. i hope we can be good friends!  
AG: Uh, ok8y? Thanks, I guess?  
apocalypseArisen [AA]: ive got nothing better to do so i suppose i'm going!  
AA: my big archaeological dig isnt for another month so i dont have any conflicts  
AA: and id be lying if i said that i wasnt excited to return to the exploding remnants of paradox space again :D  
TG: aradia have i ever told you that you scare the shit out of me  
AA: frequently!  
AG: Heeeeeeeey guys! ARquius says that he just got the signal up and it should 8e 8roadcasting. He wants to know if the 'orange twink' is receiving?  
TT: My name is Dirk.  
AG: Uhhhhhhhh, did I ask?  
TG: lmao this is hilarious  
TG: is this drag dirk day? did i miss it? ive got years of reciupts please let me join  
TT: I'm going to generously ignore those comments. Yes, I'm receiving. Coordinates are at Latitude 3.71505, Longitude 22.68363, around 1305 miles out in paradox space.  
TT: Be safe out there, folks.  
AG: See all of you soon!!!!!!!!

* * *

You turn back to the group of sprites and try not to cry.

You hadn't thought they'd come for you. You had hurt them so many times. Some of them you'd underestimated, had antagonized and bullied- you still winced thinking about your treatment of Jake. You'd driven Kanaya away from you, you'd blinded Terezi, you'd belittled Karkat, you'd manipulated Sollux and Jade- you'd  _killed_ Aradia for gog's sake. You'd insulted and hurt Roxy and Jane and Dirk's friend, and you were responsible for one of John's deaths, and you'd had many, many fights on the meteor with Rose surrounding her soporifics, fights where you'd said awful things about her mother and what she was becoming. It had ended without her becoming an 'alcoholic' as Dave had called it, because you didn't want her to  _die_ , the way she was doomed to if you didn't help, but- you'd hurt her in the process.

Dave, maybe, didn't hate you- he'd been your friend on the meteor, a friend with which you discussed mothers and brothers and how could you possibly weigh how much it hurt against who they'd made you- but he knew of what you'd done, too. And why wouldn't he hate you for it? You hated yourself for it. Roxy and Jane and Dirk- you can't think of anything  _specific_ that you'd done to them, but they'd heard of you, definitely. They knew how you'd hurt Jake. And Calliope? You'd killed her brother, though there was obviously no love lost there. 

You'd hurt so many of them so many times. But here they were. Coming back for you. Bringing you home. 

"They're sending a rescue mission," you tell them. "We're going home."

Davepeta cheers loudly and Tavros breaks out into a rare genuine smile. Jasprose kisses her sibling's cheek and ARquius nods, unsurprised, having been a hundred percent sure that his tracker would get them home. You sit down hard on a rock and think of Terezi.

Terezi... you'd been her moirail. You were still surprised, somewhere deep inside you, that she had ever been or ever could be pale for you- a remnant of when she'd first asked you. She was too good for you, and you'd thought she knew it by now.

But she still cares about you- she still wants you home. Terezi cares about you- maybe out of a sense of obligation or duty, but that doesn't matter. You'll take what you can get from her. Just knowing that she cares about you is enough. It's more than you could ever have hoped for.


	3. an apology, a rescue, and a reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's going to take three and a half days for the rescue team to get here, which leaves you with a lot of downtime that you don't have anything to do with. You've got your spider watch, but the battery won't last you three days and anyways it can only access the trollian chat client. You can only put up with Karkat ranting about the newest romcom's absolute idiocy for a little while (read: about five minutes).
> 
> Or: in which Vriska apologizes and means it, a rescue party arrives, and Jasprose is a big lesbian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: really bad self-esteem, past abuse (on spidermom, doc scratch, and vriska's parts), ableist slurs, sexual assault (on mindfang's part against the dolorosa) and the usual vriska warnings
> 
> at first i thought this would be 2 chapters. then i thought it'd be three. guess how many it is now?? ur right!!! its four!!

The thing about the rescue mission is that a thousand three hundred and five miles to fly is a long, long way. Dirk estimated it'd take a little under two days going full throttle, but unfortunately, God Tiering doesn't give you enough stamina to fly at forty miles per hour for forty-eight hours straight- and Calliope's wings are still not fully developed, and she can't go at her full speed- so Rose printed out an itinerary featuring a sleep schedule, four hour blocks dedicated to flying at thirty miles per hour, and twenty minute breaks to rest and eat in between each block. All in all, it'd take around three and a half days to get to the meteor where you and the sprites are currently stranded, which leaves you with a lot of downtime.

You don't really have a lot to do with that downtime, also. You've got your spider watch, but the battery won't last you three days and anyways it can only access the trollian chat client, and you can only put up with Karkat ranting about the newest romcom's absolute idiocy for a little while (read: about five minutes). So instead, you're reduced to playing cards with the others, sleeping a lot, squinting out in the distance to see if maybe the rescue party has arrived ahead of schedule, and working up the courage to talk to Tavros.

It takes you two days to muster up what reserves you have and walk determinedly over to where Tavros is talking with Nannasprite and tap him on the shoulder.

"Tavros. Can we talk? Alone?"

He flinches a little and you feel guilt seep down your back. "Oh, uh, hi Vriska... I guess that's, um, okay, if you really want to..." he says hesitantly, and you nod, not trusting yourself to say much else.

The two of you walk- or in Tavros's case, float- over to the edge of the asteroid that is your temporary base for the time being and you sit on the edge, dangling your feet over the long and endless drop into darkness, patting the seat next to you. Tavros hesitates for a moment before dropping down to sit next to you and you take a deep breath.

You open your mouth and close it again. There's nothing there all of a sudden, despite your planned and practiced speeches to yourself, your several rough drafts. All of a sudden it's just gone, and you don't know what to say. All you can think of is Tavros, a crumpled figure at the edge of the cliff, and the burning rage in your mind of  _why are you so weak I'm making you strong don't you see what I'm trying to do I want to make you into someone who is never scared the way I am_ , and you are thinking of what Spidermom did to you and suddenly it all seems to mesh together in a way that you had never really seen before and it hurts. It hurts to see yourself the way Tavros must have seen you back then.

"Vriska?" Tavros asks gently. His voice is coming from far away and you realize that you are maybe crying a little. Your shoulders are quivering, just a little, back and forth, as your breath comes hitching in your chest. You've learned how to stop crying, but sometimes it comes on so fast that you can't stop it quick enough for the first few tears. Also, you have allergies. This is probably just the allergies.

"I'm sorry," you mutter, and wipe your eyes with the back of your hand. "I'm just... ugh." You sigh. It comes out hiccupy and catches on the edge of your teeth, and you bury your head in your hands to conceal the wet cobalt evidence of your tears. You breathe, and when the moment of memory has passed you speak. 

"Tavros, I'm sorry."

There's silence for a few nervewracking seconds before Tavros speaks.

"Um... what?"

You roll your eyes. All this buildup, all this work and effort to be strong enough to say the words, and he doesn't even hear you properly! 

"I said I'm sorry, ugh," you groan. "I'm sorry that I pushed you off the cliff and I'm sorry that I called you a cripple and I'm sorry that I made you think that you were worthless and dumb and I'm sorry I hurt you. It was wrong of me and I never should've done it."

The weight of Tavros's eyes on your back is heavy and disbelieving, and you squirm beneath his gaze, your body subconsciously anxious and wriggling away from the weight of his judgement. You've earned his judgement, though, and you force yourself to stay still, to accept it: the weighing of the scales, the administration of justice by the people you've hurt directly.

"I'm, um, sorry, but I'm just, kind of um, really shocked?" Tavros says eventually. He huffs an uncertain laugh, almost a giggle. "You've never, um, really apologized to me. At least not, uh, sincerely."

You peek out from between your fingers, waiting for him to go on talking, your bloodpusher thumping anxiously in your chest cavity. He doesn't sound like he wants to kill you, but that doesn't mean much. Lots of people have sounded like they didn't want to kill you but they've tried anyways. You're still hoping that this is not one of those times.

"You always seemed so  _sure_ that, um, what you were doing was going to help me," he continues, squinting out into the distance. "And um, obviously it didn't because of, uh, who I am, but I didn't think you really, uh, knew that it was hurting me? Even with the, um, cliff, you  _said_ you were sorry but you didn't seem to care that I was hurt so much that Aradia was mad..."

He trails off and your bloodpusher is in your mouth now, beating beating down. It tastes like sweat and fear. 

"I guess I just want to know why you did it," he says finally, and turns to you. His gaze is stronger now and full of certainty. "Why did you ever really care about me? Why did you want to make me someone I wasn't? Why did you hate me so much?"

You have to think about that for a moment, but you know the answer. It all comes down to the same thing- that awful black castle of a hive, the spider in the basement whispering and the journal in your bedroom full of promises and the man in your chumplist who can predict the future. 

"Did you know that Mindfang was my ancestor?" you say at last, turning to Tavros as your fingers fall from your face and clutch at your knobby knees, tracing the symbol of the woman you wanted to become on your thighs. 

"Um, no?" Tavros cocks his head at you, puzzlement written in the downturn of his mouth and the lines around his eyes. "Why?"

"I inherited her journal," you tell him quietly, and then you tell the story of Mindfang as she told it- pirates and the Orphaner and a jadeblooded slave, still grieving, the mother of a revolution, with shaky hands and a mind unsure of whether it was her doing this or someone else in her brain. The step too far, blood on the deck, a broken spade. A legislacerator with a dragon and a legacy in flames, a lost arm and eye, a trial gone wrong and a tealblood dangling blue from a noose, a clown laughing in the background. A white ball, a prosthetic, a prophesied matesprit and a revolution. The Summoner destined.

And when Mindfang's story is over you don't stop talking, you keep going, you lay it out for him: here, the little troll girl in her hive with a monster in her basement. The feeding, the bodies, the horror stories on FLARP boards of the cerulean who never left a victim alive. Need to be good enough, need to be strong enough, and here is the woman who was everything you were supposed to be. You go black for an Ampora, and try to be red for a bronzeblood, you stop thinking about the bodies in the basement because it just hurts more and you're supposed to be remorseless and unfeeling. And you have friends but they aren't  _yours_ , not really, they're Terezi's, and you want to make them strong like you. All you can see is their weak spots so you do what your mother did, you break them down and down and down hoping something stronger will rise from the rubble. But it never does, because all you can do is hurt them, not help them.

"I thought that what my Spidermom did to me was okay," you mumble, staring down at your knees. "Because it made me stronger, right? And maybe it did but I was small and all it taught me was that you can't be vulnerable with anyone. I didn't know that then. You were so small back then, and you made dumb jokes and rapped with Gamzee and played Fiduspawn and FLARPed as Pupa Pan. I knew that someone was going to hurt you and you'd end up broken or dead and I didn't want that to happen because you were my friend. Even if I didn't act like it. So I did what Spidermom did to me. I didn't know I was hurting you. Or- no, that's a lie. I knew I was hurting you but I thought it was okay because you'd just become stronger and eventually you'd thank me. But it wasn't okay. None of it was okay."

You stop speaking and the silence that falls between you two is deafening. You're not waiting for anything, just hoping that he hears you. You don't expect forgiveness, and there's nothing left to say about what happened; you've said everything that needed to be said. All you can do is hope that it helps Tavros, somehow, or makes him feel better about what happened. Makes him stop blaming himself, if he still is. 

After a few more awkward moments of silence you sigh and start to get to your feet. Your presence here is no longer necessary- all that's left to do is avoid Tavros for the rest of your life and hope that he never tells anyone about your moment of weakness.

"Ugh, just forget I said anything-"

Tavros grabs you by your sleeve and you turn around to look at him. His face is open, honest, and kind- he looks like he did back before the Game, back before you ruined him. It hurts to look at him, but you maintain eye contact because he's earned that much, at the very very least; Tavros deserves more than you can give him.

"I don't, uh, think I can ever really forgive you," he says, and despite the fact that you'd expected that, despite the fact that it would be so dumb of him to forgive you, the words hit you like a gun to the chest. You'd hoped, maybe- but no. You haven't earned forgiveness. 

"What you did to me was, um, really really awful? And I think you know that. It still kind of, uh, hurts and I still have thoughts that, um, are because of what you said to me, and they aren't going to ever go away. But uh, I do appreciate that you apologized for it, and I think you, um, are kind of aware of how much what you did hurt me. Because it happened to you too. Differently, I think, but you know parts of how it felt. So the fact that you know what you did was wrong... that helps. To know that you feel bad about it, sweeps after it happened. So, uh, thanks, I guess."

You shrug as much as you can without betraying how your body's shaking a little in gratitude. This boy surprises you every time; how unlike a troll he is, in the best possible way. How gentle he is. You hope that he can be happy back home.

"No problem, Tavros! I guess some of Terezi's lectures about being a 'good person' ended up rubbing off on me after all," you grin wobbily. "And, um, thanks. For listening."

He nods and lets go of your sleeve, and you start to take a step forward before you stop and turn back around.

"Oh, also Tavros? This conversation never happened. Especially not where Vantas is concerned."

Tavros grins and makes a motion like he's zipping up his seedflap, and you smile and make your way back across the meteor with a newfound lightness in your step. 

* * *

There's only about a day left before your trip back, and you spend that day mostly just lying on the ground next to Jasprosesprite as she rambles on and on about 'lesbianism', which you remember Rose saying a lot on the meteor. You don't know what it means, but you think it has something to do with loving girls? It sounds good. You want to know what politicull group on Earth championed it so you can sign up, because a politicull party surrounding the idea of girls is something you can get behind!

Mostly Jasprose just talks about how hot John's mom is, and how absolutely adorable Calliope is. She tends to go on tangents about various girls that she met during her brief meeting with the rest of the group before the battle. There's a lot of swooning over Kanaya, specifically, which is something that you expected (Kanaya is, after all, Rose's wife, and Jasprose is at least half Rose, even if it is Rose from another timeline). You didn't really expect as much talk about Jade, but then again, you had wondered what was up with Rose and Jade back at the beginning of the game. They'd been really good friends, after all, and there had been... something between the two. But then Kanaya had happened and you'd dismissed the idea you'd had that the two of them were flush-flirting with one another. Jasprose, it seems, hasn't forgotten those feelings, and nor does she subscribe to any notions, human or troll, of monogamy. It's kind of endearing.

She's good company. Jasprose doesn't really seem to care about your own internal crisises, so she just lets you sort of flop on the ground and contemplate your relationship with Terezi internally while she rambles about how she wants to see if Jane tastes like cake batter or whatever. You're not really paying attention. 

Internally you are screaming.

Back on the meteor it had been Terezi who had proposed a pale relationship between the two of you, and you'd agreed with only a moment of hesitation- some still-intact part of whatever was once your conscience had told you no don't do this to her don't force her into this, into the perpetual disappointment of you always letting her down and dragging her into your bullshit, but the entirety of you was so starved for her. She had hated you for so long, had stood on the roof with your life in her hands and been prepared to kill you and you had always loved Terezi Pyrope with all you had. How could you say no?

And now it's catching up to you. She cared for eight years, alone and you were the reason why. You were supposed to be good for her, to make her happy, to take away her pain, to bear the edges of her storm- that's what moirails are supposed to do. And instead she scoured the edges of unreality for you, waited years for you. Because you weren't strong enough to say no, to end it while you could. 

What are you supposed to do when you get home? Will she feel compelled to stay with you despite every reason it's a bad idea, force herself into an eternity of apathetic moirallegiance? Not to mention the- other feelings you have for her. Life on Earth C will be eternity, and she will figure out the extent of what she feels for you. You're shit at keeping secrets. Would she take you as a matesprit out of pity, force herself to act red for you, or worse- would she hate you? For loving her? Both options are so awful, so painful, that you feel your bloodpusher prick even thinking of them.

No. You can't let that happen. You will break it off when you leave, end it quickly and painlessly- make it clear that you don't want to force her into something she doesn't want, has never wanted- and then she will be free of you. Everyone will be free of you.

You ignore the part of your brain that is screaming  _no_ against this idea, the one that rages against obscurity, that wants to be a hero in all ways possible. You're wiser than that. You're well aware of who you are, and you resolve that now, when you're able, you will be able to stop yourself from being the person who was ready to doom the meteor for the sake of glory. You've grown, as dumb and cliché as those words are, and you're going to prove it.

Your internal monologue is interrupted when Jasprose trails off in the middle of a sentence about the possibility of having a threesome with Rose and Kanaya (Jegus Christ, you think, this purple cat lesbian really has no shame) and points to a little bright dot in the sky that seems to be growing bigger by the second. 

"Hey," she says. "Is that what I think it is?"

The rest of your little ragtag band of sprites gathers around the two of you, peering up at the sky. Indeed, the dot seems to be getting brighter and larger in the sky, till you can tell it's a group of people, some of whom you recognize and others of whom you don't. There's John, looking entirely at ease in his dumb blue pajamas as he flies, and Crocker, her hands sparking neon blue fire that trails behind her like a beacon. Harley is right behind the two of them. Her little woofbeast ears are flat against her head with excitement, or maybe that's just the wind; either way you'll admit it's positively adorable. Behind the three of them trail a tall green cherub dressed in a tailored black tuxedo, a pair of large white wings beating the air behind  her. Next to her Aradia floats gently along, seemingly absorbed by the wreckage that surrounds you. 

Here they are, you think. Your rescue crew.

Jane is the first to touch down on the meteor, and she does so with calm stoicism and grace. Behind him Jade follows her lead, though she isn't quite as graceful about it, choosing instead to land with a thump on her two feet. John, for his part, almost falls over when he lands and immediately takes the opportunity to flop onto his ass and sit down, breathing heavily. Aradia and Calliope follow suit, the pair of them folding their wings together to rest behind their backs as they stand in front of you on the quiet asteroid.

For a moment, silence reigns between the lot of you. No one speaks.

Then Jade Harley zooms forward with a crackle of green energy to crash into Davepeta, wrapping her arms around them and squealing with delight. Davepeta lets out a small 'oof' as Jade collides with them, but they hug back just as hard, nuzzling their head next to Jade's, wings flapping with joy. It's positively adorable and you gag a little in your mouth when you look at it. There's complete silence as they just- stand there. Hugging. The last time you saw a pale display this public was when Karkat shooshpapped Gamzee on the meteor to keep him from slaughtering the rest of you. 

You clear your throat loudly and tilt your chin pointedly, coughing in an effort to be 'discreet' or something. You want to be 'tactful'. Or whatever. That was one of the things that you tried to get better at on the meteor. 

Jade and Davepeta separate, grinning dumbly at each other.

You roll your eyes and something seems to shift in the dark behind your eyelids, wobbling in your knees. You feel your body lean backward, your stomach dawning into the sick, adrenaline-fused realization of falling, and you brace yourself for the sensation of landing on your butt and even worse, having to deal with the fact that Megido, Harley, Crocker, the sprites, and Egbert- plus the cherub, this’ll be her first impression of you, ugh- have all seen you fall on your ass due to exhaustion.

As you contemplate this, an arm wraps itself around your waist and yanks you abruptly out of your musing. Shocked, you open your eyes to see Aradia Megido smiling down at you.

She hauls you back to your feet, and the thought ‘damn she has some buff arms’ floats through your brain, because, um, well, they’re buff arms- but once you’ve regained your footing and have straightened upright, she still keeps her arm around your waist.

“Here,” she says brightly, and produces half a loaf of human bread from her sylladex. “Eat this.”

After your sweeps on the meteor, you’ve become more accustomed to eating human food than its troll counterparts. You sniff it cautiously just in case, but it smells perfectly normal- in fact it smells _heavenly_ \- so you bite deep into the piece.

It’s delicious. The crust is crunchy but pliable, thick enough to give a sensation of resistance as your sharp front teeth sink into it, and the dough is thick and chewy, warm in your mouth. It’s the first food you’ve eaten in four days- which is a long time, even for a godtier such as yourself- and you sigh in contentment through the bite of food.

“Yeah, I know right?” Aradia says, still watching you through her large brown eyes. Her face betrays nothing, despite the small smile dancing on her lips. Aradia's smiles tend to mean absolutely nothing. “Jane is a really good baker. I love her food.”

“Isth goodth,” you admit through your stuffed mouthful of bread. After a minute of chewing, you swallow and nod at Aradia. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome, Vriska,” she says. She tilts her head sideways as if to consider the length of you- and then she smiles slowly at you as if she’s found something new to consider. Her teeth gleam, pearl-white in the light of the shattering sky.

You look away from her. Even after all this time, Aradia still kind of creeps you out. Little things, leftover from her time as a ghost and a robot and a frog-sprite, still linger about her.

“Um, so should we go, then?” John says brightly, smiling his awkward bucktooth grin. “Everyone ready to go back? No one left their bag or something?”

He’s standing with Nannasprite at his side, and the two of them are smiling at one another. You’d almost forgotten that they were related, but you can see it now- the curve of their smiles, the shape of their eyes, the slope of their nose.

“Yes, I think we ought to make our way back home,” the cherub- Calliope- chimes in. “Roxy keeps on sending those emoji messages nonstop. It makes me miss her quite a bit and I would like to return home so I can see her.”

Jade nods with precision. “Okay, okay…” She beckons Calliope over to her side and ushers the group of people over, flexing her fingers as she does so, a flickering Space symbol hovering above her hand as she moves them.

"We have to have you in our sights so we can do this properly," she explains, "so everyone cluster up together. That way we can see everybody and we don't accidentally leave someone behind, because I'm not coming back here to pick one of you up, okay?" 

It's a joke- at least you think it's a joke- but it's one in poor taste, and she clearly realizes it, flinching a little at her own bad joke. "Um, never mind. Everyone squeeze together, okay?"

You shuffle up to the group. Behind you, Aradia follows you, her hand gently guiding on the flat of your back. Next to you, Jane and John squeeze in. The sprites follow up behind you, and Jade looks over the group, mouthing a count of the people, likely to ensure that everyone's accounted for and within her sight. Finally she nods, satisfied that everyone is here, and raises her hands. Next to her, Calliope mimics the gesture, squinting a little as she does, and you close your eyes, hoping with all your heart that this  _works-_

There's a feeling in your stomach that hits you, like the moment before a drop or a fall, the moment of weightlessness before contact, fluttery and empty inside of you. Around you the world becomes a gust of wind, under and above and around you reduced to the movement of air, the cutting breeze- you suck in a breath, alarm bells ringing inside of you, everything in your body screaming that something is  _wrong_ -

Just like that, the vortex around and inside you abates. You feel the world come to a stop around you and you drop, your feet landing on the firm asphalt of a driveway. You almost overbalance in the suddenness of it, so unused to the feeling of gravity, but Aradia's hand tightens around your waist and she anchors you on your feet. You breathe in and out- once, twice, again, squinting against the brightness of the sun in the sky. Apparently this planet's daylight isn't lethal- you feel no burning, no slow blistering of your skin as it peels off of you, just a steady warmth. It's... nice.

You take notice of your surroundings- it's a habit, one borne from sweeps spent on Alternia. You're on a hilly driveway, lined by violets and roses and lilies. It leads up to a white hive with many windows, and there are gardening tools left outside- you think it must be Jade Harley's house, or perhaps Kanaya's. She did like gardening, after all. 

Behind you there is a soft popping noise and then a gasp. You turn and see the sprites, clustered together, floating- except they aren't floating. They're ascending; receiving a gift, because, you realize suddenly, they, just as much as the players, have won this game, forced into awful conditions and persistent against all odds. These, who had once been living beings, reduced to a construct, are entitled to immortality just as much as anyone else among you. The game knows this, and it is bestowing upon them their own final reward- for persisting so long in their thankless tasks, drifting, merged with a capricious entity, used as a source of information.

At last the sprites are receiving their bodies.

Tavros stares down at his arms, lifting his hands to touch his face. Whiskers sprout from his cheekbones, and the tip of his nose glistens pink the way a meowbeast does as he sneezes. Tufts of white fur peek out from his armpits and dust his collarbone; from the neck down he is covered in white fur. His legs peek out from under a pair of dark brown pants, sun glinting off the metal appendages. He's taller now, almost as tall as you, his skin a dark brown-gray, cheeks freckled with dots. His fingers are thicker and tipped with black claws, the pads of his hands pink and calloused. His horns have grown, too, matured so that they're a sunburst color and big enough to pose a serious problem when going through narrow hallways. He looks like the troll he was supposed to grow up to be. 

By his side, ARquius is reverent as he runs a tan hand over his biceps. He looks similar to how Equius looked in life, except his hair is much shorter and a shade of pale orange-red, curling a little at the ends. Some of his broadness has been lost- he is a little leaner now, but he's still wearing his triangle shades, still covered in muscles and ridiculously tall. He's dressed in black sweatpants and nothing else. Earth C, it seems, has decided that ARquius doesn't need a shirt.

Jasprose, for her part, appears absolutely delighted by the transformation. She runs her claw-tipped fingers through her hair with a long, luxurious smile on her freckled brown cheeks, seemingly fascinated by its magenta color and the way it drapes down her back. Meowbeast ears peek out from beneath her mane, sharp-tipped and pink. Sburb has translated her sprite outfit into a pink crop top and a flowy knee-length skirt, which Jasprose is swishing around her body with delight. A long purple-gray tail protrudes from her back, dripping slime onto the floor- on further examination, you realize it's not a tail. It's a tentacle.

You avert your eyes from Jasprose and look at Davepeta, who is laughing loudly and prancing around the driveway hugging themself. Their wings, an arching pair of feathery orange and green appendages, flutter excitedly on their back. The hem of their lime-green trenchcoat swirls around their knobby brown knees as they sigh in joy, their curly strawberry-blonde hair buffeted by a slow breeze. A pair of triangular orange horns crown their head. Everything about them is neon-bright with joy and happiness as finally,  _finally_ , they are allowed to exist as themself. 

Nanna chortles a little as she looks at her body, her white locks tucked under her harlequin cap. She has old, wrinkled black hands, and you can't help but look at them- you have never seen an old woman before. She is a little short, her back bent, but in this moment she seems full of contentment, entirely glad to have been given the opportunity to be the woman she was not allowed to be in life. 

John rushes over to his Nanna with a cry of happiness and nearly bowls over the old woman in a tackle-hug, burying his face in the crook of his grandmother's neck. Nanna laughs as she spins her grandson around, surprisingly strong considering how old she is; the two of them laugh into each other, full of the emotions that accompany such reunions. Jade Harley runs to Davepeta and grabs them by the collar of their trenchcoat to pull them down into a searing kiss. Davepeta freezes for a moment, then kisses back just as enthusiastically, and you avert your eyes. This is their moment, and you are not going to interrupt them.

A door slams open and you whirl, falling into a defensive stance out of instinct. But there are no enemies here. Instead the front door to the hive opens and out pours the players who survived hell with you- a welcoming crew, here to congratulate you on your safe return home.

First out is, surprisingly enough, the English boy. He heads straight for Tavros and clasps the man in a near-backbreaking hug that nearly knocks him over. On his heels is Roxy Lalonde, who shouts  _"CALLIE! JANEY!"_ and bursts out the doorway to capture Crocker and the cherub in an embrace that lasts a few moments before Roxy draws away and gives them both pecks on the lips. 

Right behind her is Dirk Strider, who heads straight for John Egbert before pausing on the driveway when he sees John and his Nanna hugging and laughing, shoving his hands in his pockets and scuffing his tennis shoe against the concrete driveway, his hesitance plain to see- but John catches sight of him and laughs, carefree, gesturing for Dirk to join them. He smiles and approaches, extending a hand to shake that Nanna rebuffs, drawing him instead into a tight hug. 

With that, everyone else sort of just- pours outside. Rose and Kanaya go over to Jade, who introduces Davepeta, and you note a man who looks exactly like John's Dad but who must be someone else, because you  _saw_ his Dad get eviscerated by Bec Noir approaching Nanna, who sweeps him up into an embrace as well. All around you are people yelling and laughing and kissing and celebrating. It's overwhelming- everything is loud and bright around you, and you have to blink a couple times to get your bearings. 

Sollux sidles up to you and Aradia. He completely ignores the celebration and the laughter in favor of crossing his arms in front of his moirail, looking her over for any visible injuries; but Aradia just grins up at him and paps him gently on the cheek. 

"You worrywart, everything went  _fine_ ," she says, beaming. "I told you it would all be okay." 

He rolls his eyes and pouts a little. "Never thaid it wouldn't," he grumps, but the corner of his mouth tugs. Aradia reaches up on the tips of her toes to ruffle his hair, straining a little to do so. 

"You're such a liar," she says, but the words are fond. 

You look around at the celebrations, hoping to find Terezi among the welcome crew. Instead you catch sight of Dave leaning against the door, smiling a little. He nods at you, crooks a finger, and you find yourself going over to him to see what he wants. 

"She's in there," he says, and jerks his thumb over his shoulder at the foyer of the hive. "She's waiting for you."

He pats you on the shoulder gently. "It's good to see you, though," he says, and you can't help but smile. You and Dave bonded on the meteor over a variety of things; godtiering and the new bodies it gave the two of you, bruises and the knowledge of who'd put them there. You hold a bit of a soft spot for him, to be honest, and you are glad to see him again. "Nice to see that you made it out alive."

"Yeah," you say, and smile at him. "You too, Strider." 

He steps aside and you make your way into the foyer and up the stairs, down the long hallway and to the last room on the right, where you can hear Karkat's raised voice even through the door. The years apart haven't given him any more volume control, evidently. 

"C'mon, they're right down there! You've been waiting for this for so long, why won't you just- go out and see what happened?"

"Karkat," and  _oh,_ that's her, "what if it didn't work? What if something went wrong out there and she's  _dead_?" 

"Everyone out there is celebrating! You  _really_ think they'd be this happy if something went wrong?" Karkat yells back. Your hand hovers on the doorknob, and you are struck by a wave of terror, so thick that it washes over you like a tide. All your worries come back, summoned to torment you again; what if she hates me, what if she doesn't want me here, what if, what if. All are so irrational- you literally just heard her say that she was worried, that she wanted you back- but they are powerful enough to drag you out to sea, your fingers motionless on the metal doorknob. 

"Half of them loathed her," Terezi snarls. "You're correct. Some of them would care! Dave and Kanaya, maybe. But it's not the same-"

You open the door before she can finish her sentence, before you can stop yourself. Karkat has already started to puff up, probably about to yell at you for 'eavesdropping on a PRIVATE conversation, Vriska!', but you don't care. You don't give a shit about Karkat. You meet Terezi Pyrope's eyes for the first time in sweeps, and everything is right with the world again.

"Vriska," she breathes, quietly, and crosses the room in two strides, her hand coming up to touch the curve of your cheek, as if to check that you're here, that you're in front of her, that this is real; the Scourge Sisters back together again. "It's you."

Your oculars well up, and you can't even bring yourself to blame it on allergies. "Hey, Pyrope," you say, and curl one hand through her hair. "Miss me?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD~
> 
> this fic is now part of a series, 'life on earth c', which deals with what life on earth c is like & the worldbuilding surrounding it.


	4. a confession and an ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your name is Terezi Pyrope and your moirail is finally home for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for low self-esteem, some intrusive reporters, mentions of troll racism, mentions/discussions of past alternian-typical violence, an offhand mention of what is lowkey lesbophobia, and vriska (vriska). 
> 
> note: TECHNICALLY terezi is what wikipedia calls a teaching fellow or a graduate student instructor as opposed to a TA, but some universities & colleges use the terms interchangeably. we're just gonna assume that tz is going to a college where that's the case

Your name is Terezi Pyrope and right now you're watching- or, well smelling- your moirail sleep.

You will freely admit that this is a bit creepy! But considering the circumstances, you think this is excusable. It's been so long that there were parts of her that you forgot; the way her left horn has a little nick at the end; the way she sighs, overblown and dramatic, when imposed upon; the way the palms of her hands feel on your back. So many things that were lost to time and the fallibility of memory, are now returned to you, and you have thrown yourself headfirst into the process of memorizing them again. 

She makes a noise in her sleep, twisting around a moment to get more comfortable in her recuperacoon. Kanaya and Rose dragged out the spare for her, saying something about how it wasn't being used anyways- it's the same recuperacoon that you used, when you'd just come back from your searches in Paradox Space, so you can sympathize with the urge to twist and turn in an effort to find the most comfortable spot. Target, like a lot of retail stores on Earth C, is mostly focused on human needs. Their recuperacoons are itchy and uncomfortable- you, alongside the other trolls, tend to go to businesses that are troll-owned.

You've stayed over tonight in order to help her get back on her feet- when everyone's up, you plan to propose that she move in with you. There's enough room for it, you know that- you're just hoping that she agrees to the idea.

You have to take her around to show her the city today anyways. You'll show her your favorite spots round town, discreetly sneak her into your college so she can see what you do nowadays, tell her about what's happened in her absence, and then you'll show her to your place and ask if she wants to stay with you. If she says yes, you're entirely prepared! After all, you spent the last week ordering stuff off Amazon for just that possibility.

If she says no- well. It's not the Game anymore. She shouldn't feel any obligation to stay with you any longer, and that's fine. This life you've spent so long building, it belongs to you now. You can still enjoy it- you have lived, content enough, over the past few years. You can just keep moving on as is.

(But it won't be the same, knowing she's alive but just  _doesn't want you_. Knowing she's out there, and you're alone. You want her by your side, you always have, this girl whose very existence makes you wonder why quadrants exist. You want every day to be like this- waking up and knowing that she's here.) 

She snuffles a little in her sleep, turning over, and you smile despite your worries. It's still hard to believe she's here, but all you have to do is sniff the air again and that sharp-sweet blueberry smell reminds you. 

She's home. Vriska is home, and regardless of what happens next after this, that's enough.

Your stomach rumbles, insistently reminding you of your body's hunger, and you stand, stretching, reveling in the way the sockets of your shoulders pop and crack before you make your way downstairs to see if Rose and Kanaya have started on breakfast.

* * *

You're almost done eating a stack of pancakes that you distinctly suspect were the products of Dave's culinary skills, because they actually taste good, and neither Rose or Kanaya have any kind of skill in the kitchen. Rose once burned rice because she was composing a four thousand word retort in  _literal_ purple prose involving references to a bunch of philosophers that you've never heard of, ending with TL;DR: Everything you said is wrong, in response to some asshole saying that 'the Seer of Light isn't a lesbian, she's just really close with the Sylph of Space'. She'd been so caught up in writing the positively scathing response that she hadn't noticed the smoke emanating from the kitchen. And Kanaya's status as a rainbow drinker causes... quite a few problems, the least of which being that she doesn't understand that humans can't eat steaks so raw they're bloody- and the rainbow drinker myths have turned out to be mostly true. Kanaya once spilled a bowl of pumpkin seeds and spent four hours counting them. 

In any case! These pancakes were not made by Rose or Kanaya, but they are very good, and you enjoy them quite a bit, especially with strawberry syrup poured all over them and a blob of whipped cream on top. You're just about to finish your breakfast when you hear Vriska yawning her way down the stairs, feet thumping into the kitchen.

"Hello, Vriska," Kanaya says pleasantly from the kitchen entrance. Vriska groans and you can't help but cackle a little. Your moirail's penchant for sleeping in is well known, and she doesn't take kindly to bright fluorescent lights early in the morning- a fact that Kanaya has either forgotten or is deliberately ignoring, considering the way she's glowing brightly. It smells like electricity and solar panels, the buzzing white taste in your nostrils strong from halfway across the room.

At the sound of your laugh, Vriska tenses noticeably and crosses the room to you in three long strides- benefits of being ridiculously tall, you assume.

"Morning, Terezi," she says softly. Her fingers graze your hair for a moment, and uncertainty pours off her in waves of almost-sour almost-sweet blue warring for a decision. One fingernail slides along the base of your horn and you sigh, leaning into the touch, into the way even that small touch sends a dizzying wave of pacifying pheromones down your scalp. 

The moment you relax into the touch Vriska flinches away and her hand falls from your scalp to clap your shoulder instead. An odd, sinking empty feeling opens in the pit of your stomach, a warning of something strange with your moirail, but you push it aside. You can talk about what's wrong later, when the novelty of her presence has worn off and the two of you are snuggled up in a pile together. Not here. 

"Morning, Vriska!" you chirp, and smile sunnily up in her general direction. "I see- or, well, smell- that you're finally up!"

The rolling of her eyes is practically audible. "Shut up. It's not like you're any better."

"False! I was awake and down here two hours before you were even considering moving from your recuperacoon, therefore I am measurably and quantifiably 'better' in this aspect, which you no doubt are aware of. Denial of your defeat is counterproductive, and you know it, Vriska!"

She snorts and snatches your fork from its spot beside your plate, skewering the last pancake. You let out a noise of protest, but it's too late- she's already stuffed the entire pancake in her mouth. 

"Defeat? Never heard of her," she proclaims, her voice muffled by her mouthful of pancake. "I'm the great Thief of Light, nothing can defeat me! Not the explosion of Paradox Space or a giant green buff skeleton with pool balls for eyes and a flashy neon light-up technicolor coat, and certainly not by  _you_ ," she smirks, one hand coming up to pap your cheek, but you flinch away. 

"Not funny, Vriska,” you tell her sharply. You don’t like thinking about what you’d almost done to her on that meteor, what you would have done had John Egbert not intervened in a flash of bright cotton candy blue, and she more than anyone knows that you don’t like it being brought up.

“Huh?” She says, confusion palpable, before the dawn of strawberry realization wafts over her and she frowns guiltily. "Oh. Sorry, Tezi. Didn't mean to bring it up."

You wave it off- in the scheme of things it was a mistake, after all- and gesture towards the seat next to you. "As punishment, I'm afraid I'm going to have to sentence you to accompany me for the rest of the day. I am being lenient in this regard, so I expect you to be thankful!"

She plops down next to you, nodding and picking up one of the leftover strawberries from right under your nose. "Yeah, I've been meaning to find out what you do round here anyways! Are there some kickass legislacerator trials that I can stream? Do you catch filthy criminals and punish them under the law?" Vriska leans back in her chair and starts to put her feet up, but an acid-green glare from Rose has her aborting the move. "Jeez, I can't wait to find out what life is like here!"

"Yeah, that's not...exactly what my job is like," you say, wondering (not for the first time) what Vriska will think of the fact that you're a law school TA instead of a figure straight out from your wrigglerhood dreams- a badass legislacerator with a dozen high profile cases and a flair for the dramatic. You hope it doesn't disappoint her. "But if you really want to see what Earth C is like, then I suppose I can introduce you to its highlights- or at least, my favorite hangouts around town."

"Alright then, it's a date!" Vriska grins at you, and instantly looks mortified, flushing a particularly vibrant shade of blueberry blue. Which doesn't make much sense to you, because she _is_ your moirail, even if this kind of outing falls more into the purview of matespritship as opposed to the typical paledate at your hive, eating pizza and ice cream and watching bad movies. The two of you have never been an entirely conventional pair of moirails anyways- this would be far from the most unconventional paledate you've had. But Vriska's embarassment and flustered air is genuine in its vibrancy.

Her mouth opens and closes silently for a few seconds before she stands up abruptly, almost knocking over her chair in the process. "I'm going to go get dressed now bye!" she squeaks, and then Vriska's gone, having absconded so quickly that only a few scattered handfuls of blue pixie dust trail behind her in her wake.

The empty sinking hole in your stomach returns, and this time it is not so easily dismissed. You've only just recovered your moirail, and now she's avoiding you nervously and hesitant to touch you, and the sheer weight of your own worry- and selfish hurt-makes you groan and rest your forehead against the tabletop.

"It seems eight years of sleep have done very little for Vriska's communication skills and emotional constipation," Kanaya remarks to her wife. You'd forgotten that the two of them were even here witnessing this fiasco, which, if anything, only makes this worse. "Then again, I suppose her inability to divulge her feelings to others is part of her charm. Isn't that right, Terezi?"

Your highly intelligent and bitingly witty response is to flip Kanaya the bird without moving your head from its comfortable position on the table.

* * *

Vriska is mindblown. You suppose that you should have expected that.

You had forgotten just how different Earth C was in comparison to Alternia. Back when you'd returned to this planet, you'd been shocked at the myriad ways where Earth C diverged from Alternia's culture. The humans hadn't understood why you were so surprised, but Kanaya and Karkat had commiserated with you about it; it had taken them quite a while to accustom themselves to this new world they'd built.

Alternia hadn't had shops, or movie theaters, or anything like that. You'd grown up on a world full of children, devoid of any adults at all. You got supplies or toys or whatever it was you wanted from eBait, shipped by drones from off-planet. Interaction with other children was always strictly planned for; to stumble across someone in the wild was exceedingly rare. 

Earth C is very, very different. Here, shops line the road in bright bursts of color, and people wander through the streets, barely acknowledging each other's existence even when they brush up against one another. They talk to each other without a care for who might be listening, and their eyes flicker over crowds without registering them; without casing them to see where they might be hiding a weapon, without reading their body language for signs of tension. 

It is altogether entirely different from the Alternia that both you and Vriska knew, and she is not yet accustomed to it. For safety's sake you make sure to stay close to her side. Vriska tends to lash out when she's scared or confused or in any way dealing with an upsetting emotion, and lashing out now would not only blow your cover but get her in a lot of trouble.

Vriska doesn't seem to mind you sticking close to her, though. When you first sidled up against her side, clasping her hand in yours, she looked down at you with shocked eyes that had softened into pleased wonder, and now she's tracing her thumb against the smooth front of your hand, a gesture that makes you shiver from the tips of your horns down to the scarlet-painted nails of your toes with something you can't quite put a name too.

The two of have visited a couple of your favorite haunts by now. You dragged her into a Bath & Bodyworks and forced her to smell all of the scented candles and soaps and other various products with you, as she complained about how dumb floral scents were- as if you didn't see the way her eyes fluttered shut as she breathed in the aroma of a lavender candle. You rambled on as the two of you walked through your favorite abstract art gallery, Sweet Brothers Pavilion (patronized by Dave Strider himself, obviously), talking about how fun it was to freak people out when they asked you what you thought of a painting and you turned around to stare, deadpan, cane in one hand as you tilted your red shades down to reveal the red expanses of your eyes. Then you stopped for coffee at a run-down little spot that made the most ridiculously colorful concoctions, which Vriska snorted in disbelief at ("devil unicorn cherry latte, Terezi, what the fuck does that even mean-"). She'd ended up literally swallowing her words, though, begrudgingly admitting that if coffee here tasted like this- she'd gestured to the mint chocolate frappucino in her hand- then maybe her previous experiences with coffee could be overlooked.

You reminded her that her previous experiences with coffee consisted of Dave and Rose hand grinding whatever coffee beans they could alchemize and dumping the resulting mixture into a cup. She shoved your shoulder gently and told you to shut the fuck up. 

Now, the two of you are standing at the bottom of an overpass decorated with bright splashes of graffiti, and you hand Vriska a can of blue spray paint from your bag as she stares up at the drawings that spill across the walls and up the ceiling, down on the ground you stand on. She starts, startled out of her contemplation, and looks down at the can in bemusement. 

"It's tradition," you explain at her confused look. "Everyone else has their own piece up here." 

You point to the strange green and purple monstrocity on the ceiling. "That's Rose's. She says that the distortion and weird proportions are intentional, but I know for a fact that she was trying to paint Kanaya and failed spectacularly. She decided to hide her mistake by turning it into a horrorterror. The black and pink mutant kitten is Roxy's. She wanted to do a tribute to her dead cat, Frigglish. The little pipe and magnifying glass is Jane's- she came here right after she decided to leave running Crockercorp to her CFO and open up her own private eye business. Over there is Kanaya's- the moth is a tribute to her dead Virgin Mother Grub mom. Karkat and Dave did the Mayor together, and Jade did the white dog. I can't tell if it's the Mendicant or Bec. John did the weird ectoplasm boy, and Jake did the Avatar tribute, and Dirk's is the weird anime horse robot. Calliope did the weird 'symbolic' one, with the chained ankles? But everything else, that's me."

Vriska surveys the sprawling mess of drawings, and you fight back the urge to ask what she thinks of these. Some of them are innocent, done on a whim- a messy self-portrait, a couple caricatures of people on Earth C that you hate. Others are less so- a club covered in teal, a legislacerator on a blue sword, a girl flying off into the night sky. You squirm, self-conscious, but Vriska isn't looking at you- she's looking at the wall. She raises the can to a bit of blank space and begins to spray something with a slightly shaky hand. You step back, sniffing as you begin to get an idea of what she's painting, frowning a little as it takes shape. 

Finally, she lowers the can and steps back and you breath in the new-paint smell, chemical clean amongst the wildlife around you. Vriska has drawn a scorpion- fearsome, blue, its stinger directed towards itself. You remember having heard something about scorpions and their relation to the sign of Scorpio, the one based off Vriska's sign; you think it is fitting.

"There," she says, her voice firm. "I'm home."

You pat her arm and move closer to her, till you are tucked in the crook of her arm. "Yes," you say thickly, swallowing down the rush of joy in your chest. "Yes, you are."

* * *

Next the two of you stop by one of your absolute favorite places to hang out- a big, cluttered bookstore on a corner with lots of back rooms, the whole place thick with the smell of well-loved books, dust and coffee and chocolate. The cashiers know you well, and they nod at you when you enter, raise a hand in greeting. Their eyes linger on Vriska at your side, and Vriska hunches a little at their gaze, but they don't say anything. 

You take her to one of the back rooms, where a big map lies open on the table, various small figures adorning it. Shelves full of hardcover books line the walls, paper and pencils and dice of various sides strewn around the room. Vriska picks up one of the dice, turning it over in her hands, tracing the edges where the numbers are carved into the sides. 

"We play Dungeons and Dragons here," you say, leaning against the wall. "We get together every week or two weeks. I'm the Dungeon Master; we're in the middle of a couple big campaigns right now, I think you'd like it."

"Sounds cool," Vriska nods, turning to look at you. "But, uh. What's Dungeons and Dragons?"

You groan. You'd forgotten that Alternia didn't have Dungeons and Dragons- its closest equivalent was FLARPing, and that wasn't something anyone who'd survived the Game planned on getting involved in ever again.

But you do think that Vriska would like D&D if she tried it, given that it's a lot more healthy than FLARP and retains all the roleplaying elements that the two of you had so loved, so you sigh and launch into a long description of D&D, laden with references and comparisons to FLARP back home, and an explanation of your two current campaigns. You will freely admit that parts of it are a little... enhanced by your description, so as to entice Vriska herself! But by the end, Vriska looks at the map on the table with a newly intrigued eye, and really, that's all you'd hoped for.

"Who's in your current, ah, campaigns?" she asks, trying and failing not to sound interested. "Like, it sounds alright I guess, but only if the people involved aren't complete losers..."

You grin at her- she can't hide her attraction to the concept from you, you've known her too long. "We have two campaigns going right now. The one about the cursed kingdom and the mad princess has Aradia, Rose, Kanaya, and Calliope playing right now; that is the more serious campaign, and it is pretty far in. The more classic campaign about the missing artifact has Roxy, Dave, Dirk, and Jane. But we've got a podcast for it, and people like to come and hang out and watch, so whenever I need a guest NPC one of our friends will volunteer to play with us for a couple sessions. However, there is one person who has a current temporary ban, and that is Jake Harley."

"Really!" Vriska leans forward, smirking a little. "What did he do?"

You sigh exaggeratedly and make a flourishing gesture with your cane. "Alas, he tried to make our campaign about that weird blue brain-tendril movie the last time he guest starred, and it was a disaster of epic proportions. Until he apologizes and swears not to do it again, he is barred from participation!"

Vriska cackles loudly. "God, that sounds just like him! Do you, um..." she trails off, and you can see her twisting a curl of black hair around her finger as she determinedly looks anywhere but at you. "Do you have room for another regular player?"

"We-e-ell, the editions that we play with recommend four players as the ideal number, and that's the amount of players that we have in our current campaign," you drag the silence out as Vriska seems to deflate, but you can't bear to look at her disappointment for long. "But when have I ever listened to the rules?"

Her smile is radiant when she looks at you and asks if she can join the classic campaign with Dave and Dirk and Jane and Roxy. It only grows when you roll your eyes and say, Duh, of course you can, and you can't help the way you smile back at her. 

Privately, you contemplate what this will mean for the campaign. If her record in FLARP is any indication, this campaign is probably going to fall into complete and utter chaos, and most of your audience is probably going to either hate or love her, but you don't care. The look on her face is well worth all of that.

Besides. Dungeons and Dragons isn't any fun if it's not a little (or, well, a lot) chaotic!

* * *

The two of you step into the afternoon air, a bag with brand-new copies of the Player's Handbook and the Monster's Manual tucked under Vriska's arm, and are immediately confronted by flashes of bright white light.

Internally, you groan. You're not nearly as famous as most of your fellow players, probably because you're a law school TA instead of a world-famous artist or writer like Dave or Rose, but you're still a player, and thus very much in the public eye. And the fact that you- notoriously single and tight-lipped regarding your love life- are out with another woman, let alone a virtual nobody- that's something that the media is very very interested in.

"Who's your new friend, Ms. Pyrope?"

"What's her name?" 

"Do your fellow players know her?"

"Is she going to be featured on your podcast?"

Vriska tenses up next to you, suddenly made of stone, and you go into action mode, pulling her arm down far enough that she ducks her head out of instinct and marching her alongside you so neither of you are making eye contact with any of these gossip-hungry vultures. You can hear her breathing, fast and hard and near-hyperventilating, and silently hope that this isn't going to give her a panic attack. You don't think any of these soft little journalists could handle Vriska in a panic attack, and Karkat has told you to "fucking keep the property damage to a minimum Terezi goddammit I hate the paps too but I'm the one who has to deal with the PR fallout afterwards" in the past, and you are trying to hold yourself to that.

Most of the questions are easily ignored, given that they're all screaming at the top of their lungs over one another, but one enterprising young journalist from a cheap magazine that no one reads to shoves a microphone in your face, and that's not so easy to avoid. 

"Is this woman a new fling? Is she part of your 'troll quadrants'?" the man asks you with all the salivating anticipation of a predator hungry for prey- or a journalist hungry for a scoop. You can hear the air quotes in his voice, and can't stop yourself from rolling your eyes. 

"First of all, the quadrants are a long discarded part of troll culture, no one really uses them anymore except as jokes, asshole," you say, quickening your pace as you turn around the block. Up ahead, the buildings of your college loom above the rest of the street, and you tug a frozen Vriska along with you as you move faster, desperate to get out of this dumb situation. "Second of all, why are you tormenting and harassing a poor defenseless blind girl and her friend?"

The man snorts. "Ms. Pyrope, absolutely no one takes the 'defenseless blind girl' excuse seriously anymore, not after you broke four of Mr. Coddak's ribs when he tried to take pictures of you in your home."

"The investigation found that Mr. Coddak merely fell down four flights of stairs!" you spit. The gate of your law school is only a couple yards away now. "And you will too, if you do not leave me alone."

The bite in your voice is enough that the reporters around you falter, and you take the opportunity to cross onto the campus. "As I've told you all many,  _many_ times before, paparazzi are not allowed on campus. Those who violate the university's rules on that matter will be escorted by security, and I can assure you that this school's security is robust enough that it can deal with all of you," you call behind you as you enter the building where you teach, leaving the vultures in your wake.

* * *

"Thank god that's over," you sigh at last as the door shuts behind you, and turn to Vriska.

She is stiff and shaking a little, her body tense-taut with fear, and you rush to her without thinking, clasping your face in her hands. The expression on her face is numb and frozen and you hurt with it, tracing the side of her cheek with the flat of your thumb.

"Hey," you say, voice soft and soothing, the same tone you'd use with a frightened animal. "Hey hey hey, Vriska. Serket. You are okay. You are here. You are on Earth C. No one can hurt you here. If they did, I would hunt them down and dispense justice, you know that, Vriska. You are here and you are home and you are with me. Come back to me."

As you ramble, your hands gently papping and shooshing at her side, you can feel the tension of her ram-rod straight back slowly dissipating as she blinks back to herself, till all her strange frozen panic is gone and all that's left is the two of you, two moirails in a secluded stairwell, pale-saccharine. 

"Oh," she breathes softly, and you can feel the weight of her eyes on you, the luminous yellow stare dripping down lamplight on whatever she deemed worthy of looking at. You last saw it as a wriggler, still playing games, before murder and feuds and ghosts tore you apart. So striking was it even then that you can still remember it now. Distantly you think that by now, her eight pupils should be a deep blue instead of the black you remember. She has long since passed the age where the iris is due to tinge itself with blood color, and you realize that even if it has, you will never see it. 

She lets you hold her for a few more seconds before she steps out of your grip and inhales, quick and deep. You can hear the way her breath skips, trembling, as she breathes, in and out, once, twice, three times before her breath is smooth and calm again. You want to go to her, but even after all these years, sometimes Vriska needs her space. You can understand that.

"Thanks, Pyrope." She nods brusquely to you, and the sinking of your stomach returns from this morning, even worse than before, as Vriska tosses her hair and plasters on a smile. "So, you work here?"

* * *

You explain your job to her as you walk the hallways. A bunch of classes are in session right now- none of the ones you're involved in- and you catch glimpses of professors lecturing and students scribbling stuff down as you walk past classrooms with Vriska trailing at your side, maybe half-a-step behind. 

"Once I returned from my... search for you," you say delicately, side-stepping the subject of your sweeps-long search for her that is still a sore spot between you with grace, "I wanted to settle into a more mundane life while still pursuing my interests, so I enrolled in college. I was top of my class in undergrad- it's similar to a prepatory school for certain professions, such as legislaceration and medicullers," you add when she looks at you in confusion. "And I enrolled here. I have about a year- or, well, a third of a sweep- left before I obtain my legislaceration degree. Here we are."

You do not let yourself scent the air for her reaction as you stop in front of the classroom where you spend most of your time, choosing instead to concentrate on fumbling with the keys in your hand for a few moments, then finally inserting the correct one into the keyhole and turning it to open the door, stepping inside and motioning for Vriska to follow you.

This is your favorite place, you'll admit to yourself. Your desk, full of your favorite little knick-knacks. A scented candle from Bath & Bodyworks, a little set of action figures from the first campaign you did on your DND podcast, your favorite scalemate sitting pretty on the side. Papers in a neat stack- you'll have to get around to grading those at some point. You've spent hours in this little spot, doing work and hanging out and studying. It is familiar to you.

"This is my main classroom," you announce, unable to keep a hint of pride out of your voice. "I TA for multiple courses, since this is my last year of school. This is the Introduction to Criminal Law classroom. I also assist in teaching the Disability Rights class, across the hall. I find I bring a... unique perspective to it!"

"Whoa," Vriska breathes from directly behind you. You feel the light wafting of breath on the back of your neck. The hair there stands up and you force yourself not to tense. "What do you even, like, do here?"

You shrug, a blush flushing the skin of your neck green-blue. "It depends on the class! Functionally speaking I act as the primary schoolfeeder for the Introduction to Criminal Law; I hold lectures, discussions, write and grade the exams, assign textbook readings, etcetra etcetra. For Disability Rights, I mostly do what the professor requires of me, which amounts to doing the work that she finds herself unwilling to do. In terms of content- well! I educate them on the laws of this world, and how to argue with- or against them."

"Oh," Vriska says. Her voice is soft, and that makes the comment sting all the more.

A laugh bubbles out of your throat as she steps forward, towards your desk. "I know, I know," you say, waving the barb of the comment away. "You think that it's quite boring. I won't hold your disinterest against you- the law is not for everyone, after all!"

"No, no!" she protests, and the urgency there is startling. You turn to face her, arching one eyebrow up; Vriska has never shown an interest in law before, and you highly doubt that her sweeps spent napping have opened her thinkpan to it. 

"No," Vriska says again. At this range you can smell the luminosity of her gaze, the thin iridescent-sheen of her bright-shining eyes. It tastes like bubbling champagne in your nose. "No, it's not boring at all."

Your smile comes out a little forced as you tilt your head a little, confused at her words. "I didn't think you cared about law, Vriska. Pirates have always been more your style." You neglect to mention the fact that even as wrigglers, it was obvious that much of her interest in pirates was not her own, instead another way that she felt she had to mimic the Marquise Mindfang; her ancestor is still a sore point between you.

She shakes her head, looking down at the plaque on your desk and tracing the groove of your name. Her left fingernail makes a little scraping noise against the curve of the first P in Pyrope, and you are suddenly very aware of the fact that the two of you are alone together in this room. 

"Nothing you do could ever bore me," Vriska murmurs, and her voice is reverent, soft, a little breathless. Her words are so loud in this lecture hall. 

You'd forgotten the way she could do this, take even the most mundane of moments between you and turn them intimate, and on instinct you reach for her. Your hand catches on her arm, the movement coming to you as easy and natural as breathing, so ingrained in you that thought plays no role in it. She turns to you, swaying a little on her feet, her fingers steadying herself on your shoulder, and there is an instant where you can almost feel her leaning down, and you think,  _is she going to kiss me?_

There is a moment of anticipation, ripe and thick between you, and you lean upwards to close the distance between you. But going up on your tiptoes makes a noise with your feet, a squeak that echoes in the lecture hall, and the spell is broken.

She breaks away from you, and the wave of disappointment crashes down over you, thick and heavy and full of berating voices so loud and true that you have to turn away for a second, corrall your expression into compliance as Vriska clears her throat hurriedly, the rasp of her voice opening up so many yawning chasms- in your heart and between the two of you- yet again. 

"So, Pyrope! Are you going to show me your place already, or are we just going to, like, wander around the city until it gets dark?" Her voice is bright and false, and you can't help the soft sigh that escapes you. 

"No need to be impatient, Serket! That is the next stop," you tell her, forcing a grin as you start walking toward the door. "Let's go!"

For a moment you scent something awful and blue and rancid, like the roiling black-blue depths of the Alternian stormy sea, almost alive in the air, some unidentifiable emotion rolling off Vriska in waves. The stench is so thick it nearly sickens you, and you turn, startled by the ferocity of it. 

But just like that it's faded, and you tell yourself that you could have only imagined it. 

* * *

"Here we are," you say, opening the door to your apartment and ushering Vriska in. She takes a few steps, placing her bag on the countertop as she comes to a stop in the middle of the living room, and you close and lock the door behind you, fumbling a little with the keys. 

"Wow," Vriska says once, twice, and nods. She repeats it. "Wow."

You can't help the way the smile spreads across your face, beaming despite yourself, and you rub one hand up against the back of your head, mussing up the soft downy hairs on the back of your head. "So... do you like it?"

All at once you are uncertain in yourself, fidgety and desperate for her approval in a way you can't remember having been in a long, long time. You want her to like this place, and the need for her good opinion is thick on your tongue, bright and electric on your fingertips. 

"Yeah?" Vriska is confused by the question- you can hear the scrunching of her brow in the uptick of her voice. "I mean, the interior design leaves something to be desired, but no one ever accused you of having impeccable taste in design."

You snort. If you had pupils or irises or anything except for the blank red void that your eyes are now, you would be rolling them. "I meant beyond that, you idiot. Honestly, Vriska, you really can't pick up on subtleties, can you? I didn't mean did you like the interior design. I meant, do you like it enough to move in with me?"

Vriska freezes, and suddenly she seems to be six sweeps again, always hesitant, always torn between flight and fight. Here she is a scared prey animal, eyes darting between every moment and every sudden move. She laughs, and the sound is rough and gravelly, ripped from her throat. "Very funny, Terezi! You don't have to take me in, I can stay with Rose and Kanaya for now-"

Here's the Vriska you know and love, you think, stubborn and dogged in her determination, unable to accept anything that could be construed as a gift, or a sign of affection. "Kanaya and Rose are foster parents, you know," you tell her patiently. "Tomorrow they're picking up their current foster child- a little carapacian girl who has undergone significant abuse. And Vriska, you're my moirail, and I care deeply for you, but of the many things you are, 'healthy for an abused girl to be around' is not one of them."

Vriska doesn't argue the point- there's not really much of a rebuttal to be made to that, anyways- just leans her head back and presses the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. "I'm not- Terezi, you don't have to do this out of some sense of 'obligation' or whatever'-"

"A sense of obligation? Vriska!" You'd forgotten, in the past few years without her, just how fucking frustrating she was, the way she could get under your skin without trying, without even knowing that she was doing it. "You're my moirail, we lived together for sweeps on the meteor, moirails live together! I'm not doing this out of a sense of obligation, I'm asking because I want you here-"

"UUUUUUUUGH," Vriska moans through her hands. "This is so- c'mon, Pyrope. Why do you have to do this to me, don't make me have to say it out loud, I just wanted this to be easy and clean and I never would've had to say it-" The rest of her speech dissolves into unintelligible mumbling through her fingers, nothing that you can make out, even with your sharp ears. 

You have no idea what's going on. At some point, the topic diverged from being about her staying in your apartment into being about something else entirely- something larger, more important. You take a step forward. "Vriska, I don't understand what-"

Her head snaps up at the sound of your voice and the creak of a floorboard. The smell of salt tears is a suckerpunch to your gut, and you suck in a breath of air at it. "Don't do this," she says again, and her voice breaks in the middle of the words.

"Do what?"

"Don't- pretend." Vriska's words rush out her mouth, spilling forth with all the intensity of a river set free of a dam, falling from her lips fast enough that there is no stemming this white-water tide. "I know you don't want me, I know you never have. I'm a shit moirail, I was shit as Kanaya's palemate and I'm shit at being yours. I'm selfish and impulsive and I hurt people, Terezi, and if I were a good person I'd lock myself away and never let anyone come near me, but the night you asked me to be yours was the best of my entire life. And I hate that. I hate that I let myself say yes because I knew all I'd ever do was hurt you- and look! I was right! You waited sweeps for  _me,_ of all people, because I sucked you into having to care about my bullshit. And you figured out my big awful secret, that it's not enough that I'm pale for you, that I'm  _everything_ for you. The night Rose tried to explain the human concept of love to me it made sense because it was the only thing that put words to what I feel when I look at you. What I've always felt looking at you. I tried, Terezi, I really did. I tried to keep it secret. But I'm shit at staying silent and you figured it out and you're doing what you always do, because you feel sorry for me. You're acting as if you feel the same. But I've learned, Tezi. You showed me how to be a good person, and I'm not going to let you doom yourself to an eternity with me."

She stops, breathing heavily, and the two of you stare at one another in the silence left after her outburst. Vriska, chest heaving with the sheer force of the emotions that have poured out from her, and you, frozen in this moment of shock, your mouth open and working around empty words. Emotions flare and flicker and die in that place beneath the dip of your clavicle, well shielded by your breastbone; surprise, and then fear, and joy, and sadness. But they are all swallowed up by the dully bright anger that wakes among them and consumes them with the force of its growing violence, roaring in your ears, and you speak without thought.

"Vriska Serket, you are an idiot."

Vriska, curling in on herself in what you have come to recognize over long sweeps as her spiral of self-hatred, snaps to startled attention at the cutting force of your words. "Wha-"

"An idiot!" Your voice comes out as a screech, and you are twice-blinded with incoherent fury. "You really think that I'm that pathetic? That I would ever entre a relationship with  _anyone_ because I felt  _sorry_ for them? I wasn't even asking you for a relationship! I was asking you to move in with me!"

Vriska's mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water, and you stalk forward till the two of you are standing with nary an inch between you. "I am  _not_ a martyr," you hiss, and poke her- with perhaps more force than necessary- in the chest with your cane. "I am Terezi Pyrope, and my actions are my own. I do things because I want to do them. Not for you. Not for anyone else, not because I feel like I have to do it. Not anymore.  _You_ taught me that."

You drop the cane and grab two handfuls of Vriska's shirt, bunch the material in your fists and yank her down to your level so that she can look you in the eye as you speak.. 

"Do you know what I want, Vriska?" You ask her. You speak in the same softness that you do when you address the students of the jury in your mock trials, or when someone tries to challenge your authority in class. It is deadly in its tenderness. 

Vriska's eyes are wide. Her scent bleeds shock, fear, surprise- and underneath it all, a fleeting whiff of hope.

"I want you."

She stiffens in your hands, but you don't wait for her inevitable protests, just barrel forward. "I want you to stay with me, Vriska. I want you to be here with me. I want us to catch up on everything that happened while we were apart. I want you to sit in on my classes and be there when I finally graduate, whooping and yelling  _THAT'S MY GIRL_ in your supremely obnoxious way as I receive my diploma. I want you to tell me about your day when I get home and argue with strangers on the Internet on my behalf. I want you to come to Pride with me and complain that you don't understand what it's about in that way that means you secretly love it but won't admit it. I want you and Karkat to argue about the most trivial of things as Dave and I snicker, I want you to try to snark at Rose and promptly be owned in the most spectacular of ways while Kanaya hides a smile behind your hand and I laugh out loud. You're such a fucking idiot, Vriska Serket," you say, and tug her closer yet. "Don't you get it? I want  _you._ "

Hope gushes from every one of Vriska's pores, white and soft and rosewater-sweet. You keep holding her tightly, your hands fisted in a sweater that she borrowed from Kanaya and hangs off her bony frame, unable to let her go. 

"But most of all," you say, and here your voice is not deadly in its softness but all sincerity, the hopes and dreams of eight years alone, praying you'd wake up and she'd be back in your arms, waking from dreams where she was with you and all was right with the world to find that your apartment was cold and empty as you held back tears. You are holding the girl you love and she refuses to believe that you love her, but it's the truth. It's your biggest truth. "I want you to want to be here with me, and if you don't, that is all right. I love you and I want you to be happy, wherever that is. And if this- if  _us-_ if that's what makes you happy, then I want that with you."

There is silence. Vriska's eyes bore into you, all eight pupils wide and wondering, and the quiet stretches long and tense in the space between your face and hers until your bloodpusher is falling. You take a step backwards, your fists loosening in her sweater as you will yourself not to feel disappointed and fail despite that. 

And then Vriska lurches forward, hands landing on your shoulders as she leans down a little to rest her forehead against yours. There is a hitching in her breath, the tell-tale whisper of tears, and when she speaks her voice cracks and stumbles over the words. 

"You mean it?"

You do, you always have, you could write your fucking PHD on the subject, but Vriska has never been swayed by words. She has always been a girl of action, impulsive and foolhardy and reckless. So you prove it to her in the only way that she'll accept and lean up to meet her halfway. 

You have not been abstinent in Vriska's absence. There have been other girls- a tall, lanky brunette with a sharp wit, a reckless violetblood with an uncanny talent for slots, a tipsy graduate student with wickedly bright canines- but never for long. Nights back at their places, always with the lights off even though it makes no difference to you, a couple sloppy makeouts in broom closets, but nothing more than that. Always gone in the morning.

Each of those women were infinitely more experienced than Vriska. That's not an insult, it's just fact. Vriska kisses with all the enthusiasm of a slobbery barkbeast, and her lips are chapped and bleeding, and you are a hundred percent certain she didn't brush her teeth this morning.

And yet, despite that, it's the best kiss you've ever had. Hands down. No contest. Everyone else can go home- the alternate timeline memories, the hookups, the one disastrous morning on the meteor where you somehow ended up making out with Rose over a cylindrical drinking instrument as Kanaya and Dave whooped (Vriska uncharacteristically silent). None of them can compare to the fact that when you slip your tongue into her mouth, you can taste all the things that make her Vriska Serket and all that the name entails. When you sigh against her teeth, it's her you're holding. 

After a long, overly wet kiss, the two of you separate, grinning stupidly at one another. You can't bear to untwine your arms from around her neck, and it seems Vriska feels the same- her hands on your waist don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

"Listen," you say, trying to recover your composure through heavy breaths and failing. "I want a long-term relationship with you, Vriska, and not just as moirails but as in girlfriends! As in redrom and morallegiance. And perhaps blackrom sometimes. I don't know. It's been a very long time since quadrants were an item of consideration for anyone on this planet, but I am aware that you are still accustomed to using them and to defining relationships by them. Regardless! I want to be with you but only if that is the kind of relationship you yourself desire, so-"

Vriska's eyeroll is audible- you can hear the soft, almost imperceptible sound of the movement of her eyeballs. It is somewhat disconcerting, but you find that you do not care. "Shut up, Pyrope," she replies, but her voice is so fond that it sounds like she's saying another three entirely. "I've been in love with you since I was five sweeps old."

"Oh." There's a lot of things you could say to that, like  _why didn't you say something sooner_ or  _you mean this could have been happening when we were five sweeps?,_ but you don't need to speak. Instead, you pull her closer and smile against her lips before beginning her first lesson on the finer points of kissing. 

Your name is Terezi Pyrope, and Vriska Serket is home at last.

For the first time in years, so are you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all my love to everyone who's commented and left kudos! you are all truly so motivating and i love you all!
> 
> also, a fun fact: terezi & co's podcast is earth c's version of the adventure zone. a couple months after terezi came back from paradox space, msspam (my siblings slash parents and me, the strilonde take on mbmbam) asked her to dm a game with them bc they were worried about her mental health and they thought it would help, and, well, it took off from there.
> 
> (obviously terezi & vriska's relationship is still not perfect, & they have a lot of issues to work through re: self-worth and actually believing that the other loves them, but theyre working on it.)


End file.
